Hamlet

Shakespeare: The Critical Tradition, Volume 1

Hardin Aasand

• Publisher: The Arden Shakespeare
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781474257015
• eBook ISBN: 9781350287372
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Shakespeare Drama
• Index: Literature

Hamlet is one of Shakespeare's four great tragedies, studied and performed around the world. This new volume in Shakespeare: The Critical Tradition increases our knowledge of how Shakespeare's plays were received and understood by critics, editors and general readers. It traces the course of Hamlet criticism, from the earliest items of recorded criticism to the latter half of the Victorian period. The focus of the documentary material is from the late 18th century to the late 19th century. Thus the volume makes a major contribution to our understanding of the play and of the traditions of Shakespearean criticism surrounding it as they have developed from century to century. The introduction constitutes an important chapter of literary history, tracing the entire critical career of Hamlet from the beginnings to the present day. The volume features criticism from leading literary figures, such as Henry James, Anna Jameson, Victor Hugo, Thomas Carlyle, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Mary Cowden Clarke. The chronological arrangement of the text-excerpts engages the readers in a direct and unbiased dialogue, whereas the introduction offers a critical evaluation from a current stance, including modern theories and methods. Thus the volume makes a major contribution to our understanding of the play and of the traditions of Shakespearean criticism surrounding it as they have developed from century to century.

Table of contents

• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• General editor’s preface
• General editors’ preface to the revised series
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Thomas Davies, on Steevens’s and Malone’s editions and various eighteenth-century theatrical performances: 1784
• Chapter 2: William Richardson, a philosophical analysis of Hamlet’s character: 1784
• Chapter 3: Walter Whiter, on Hamlet’s melancholic disposition: 1794
• Chapter 4: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Hamlet’s character as analogue for Wilheim Meister’s own disenchantment: 1797
• Chapter 5: Lord John Chedworth, glosses and personal annotation of early variorum editions (Johnson, Steevens, Malone): 1805
• Chapter 6: E. H. Seymour, on collations of various passages from quartos as a means of making the ‘brightness of Shakespeare’s genius still more conspicuous’: 1805
• Chapter 7: Francis Douce, on the historical, cultural analogues and ‘anachronisms’ of the play: 1807
• Chapter 8: Henry James Pye, various commentary notes: 1807
• Chapter 9: John Monck Mason, various commentaries on variorum editions: 1807
• Chapter 10: August Wilhelm von Schlegel, on Hamlet’s unheroic predisposition: 1808
• Chapter 11: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, on Hamlet’s ‘unpractical being’ and similarity with Wilhelm Meister: 1810
• Chapter 12: Charles Lamb, on the difficulty of representing theatrically Hamlet’s ‘solitary musings’: 1811
• Chapter 13: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, on Hamlet’s ‘irresoluteness’ of his revenge in Act 3: 1812
• Chapter 14: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Hamlet’s use of ‘trivial objects and familiar circumstances’: 1813
• Chapter 15: William Hazlitt, on Edmund Kean’s rehearsal of Hamlet’s ‘undulating lines’: 1814
• Chapter 16: Andrew Becket, on the importance of collation and conjecture in determining Shakespeare’s meaning: 1815
• Chapter 17: William Hazlitt, on the complexity of Hamlet’s characters, with passing reference to Kemble and Kean’s flawed performances: 1817
• Chapter 18: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Hamlet’s ‘flying’ from reality: 1818
• Chapter 19: T.C. [Thomas Campbell] John Wilson? ‘Letters on Shakspeare – No. 1. – Hamlet’.: 1818
• Chapter 20: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Hamlet and the development of his ‘philosophical criticism’: 1819
• Chapter 21: Zachary Jackson, presenting 700 passages needing penetration and restoration: 1819
• Chapter 22: Anon. ‘Observations on Mr. Campbell’s Essay on English Poetry’, the ‘unity’ of Hamlet’s character: 1819
• Chapter 23: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and the ‘easy language of common life’ in Hamlet: 1819
• Chapter 24: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, on Hamlet Act 1: 1819
• Chapter 25: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, miscellaneous manuscript notes: 1819
• Chapter 26: Augustine Skottowe, various observations on scenes: 1824
• Chapter 27: Samuel Weller Singer, and the dating of Hamlet: 1826
• Chapter 28: Hartley Coleridge, on the complexity of reading Hamlet’s character and his treatment of others: 1828
• Chapter 29: George Farren, an appendix on mania and melancholy in Hamlet and Ophelia: 1829
• Chapter 30: Thomas Caldecott, a defence of Hamlet’s behaviour as a means of enacting revenge: 1832
• Chapter 31: James Boaden, a memoir of Garrick’s Hamlet: 1832
• Chapter 32: Anna Jameson, Ophelia, ‘the snowflake dissolved in air’: 1832
• Chapter 33: Nathan Drake, Hamlet’s reticence to revenge: 1838
• Chapter 34: Thomas Carlyle, Shakespeare: Priest of Mankind: 1840
• Chapter 35: Alexander Dyce, a critique of Collier’s 1841 and Knight’s 1842 editions: 1844
• Chapter 36: Joseph Hunter, Shakespearean variants: 1845
• Chapter 37: Henry N. Hudson, the ‘universality’ of Hamlet’s character: 1848
• Chapter 38: Edward Strachey, Hamlet as a ‘man’ and the ‘triumph’ of his revenge: 1848
• Chapter 39: Samuel Weller Singer, ‘The Meaning of “Drink Up Eisell” in Hamlet’.: 1850
• Chapter 40: Nicolaus Delius, selected commentary notes: 1854
• Chapter 41: Rev. Arthur Ramsay, and the ‘mystery of humanity’: 1856
• Chapter 42: Henry Hope Reed, on Hamlet’s ‘meditative mind’: 1856
• Chapter 43: William Maginn, on Polonius as ‘ceremonious courtier’: 1856
• Chapter 44: William Rushton, on Shakespeare’s legal acumen: 1859
• Chapter 45: Ivan Turgenev, on the ‘turbulent sea’ and the ‘deep flowing tranquility’: 1860
• Chapter 46: Charles Cowden Clarke and the ‘shrouding’ of Hamlet’s revenge: 1863
• Chapter 47: Georg Gottfried Gervinus, the ‘conscientious’ Hamlet: 1863
• Chapter 48: Brinsley Nicholson, Shakespeare and ‘sour and stale beer’: 1864
• Chapter 49: James Henry Hackett, reviews of contemporary ‘Hamlets’: 1864
• Chapter 50: Victor Hugo, Hamlet and ‘hesitation’: 1864
• Chapter 51: Albert Cohn, the German ‘Hamlet’: 1865
• Chapter 52: Samuel Bailey, on the empirical Shakespeare: 1866
• Chapter 53: John Bucknill, ‘Ophelia, so simple, so beautiful, so pitiful’: 1867
• Chapter 54: Thomas Keightley, on individual passages: 1867
• Chapter 55: Benno Tschischwitz, on Bruno’s atomistic philosophy and Hamlet: 1867
• Chapter 56: Benno Tschischwitz, on Shakespeare’s Philosophy and Giordano Bruno’s Influence: 1869
• Chapter 57: Peter Augustin Daniel, notes and conjectures: 1870
• Chapter 58: George Miles, A Review of ‘Hamlet’: 1870
• Chapter 59: Robert Gordon Latham, the ‘hopelessness’ of Hamlet’s pre-cursors: 1872
• Chapter 60: Mary Cowden Clarke, on Ophelia’s youth: 1873
• Chapter 61: Karl Elze, the French Hamlet: 1874
• Chapter 62: Edward Dowden, and mystery, the ‘baffling, vital obscurity of the play’: 1875
• Chapter 63: Frank A. Marshall, and ‘the early life’ of Hamlet: 1875
• Chapter 64: Hermann Ulrici, Hamlet’s ‘double contradiction’: 1876
• Chapter 65: John Bulloch, and the Globe edition emendations: 1878
• Chapter 66: J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps, on Hamlet’s ‘singular determination’: 1879
• Chapter 67: Charles Cowden Clarke and Mary Cowden Clarke, ‘unlocking the treasures of his style’: 1879
• Notes
• Bibliography – quarto and folio texts
• Index