Product Description

Lively, instructive access to Shakespeare's rich and complex works. Philip Edwards aims to bring the reader, playgoer and director of Hamlet into the closest possible contact with Shakespeare’s most famous and most perplexing play. In his Introduction Edwards considers the possibility that Shakespeare made important alterations to Hamlet as it neared production, creating differences between the two early texts, quarto and folio. Edwards concentrates on essentials, dealing succinctly with the huge volume of commentary and controversy which the play has provoked and offering a way forward which enables us once again to recognise its full tragic energy. For this updated edition, Robert Hapgood has added a new section on prevailing critical and performance approaches to the play. He discusses recent film and stage performances, actors of the Hamlet role as well as directors of the play; his account of new scholarship stresses the role of remembering and forgetting in the play, and the impact of feminist and performance studies.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #20073 in Books
• Published on: 2003-04-21
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 270 pages

Review
‘The introduction and commentary reveal an author with a lively awareness of the importance of perceiving the play as a theatrical document, one which comes to life, which is completed only in performance.’ The Review of English Studies

Customer Reviews

Worth splashing out on!
Obviously Hamlet is a fantastic play,one of Shakespeare's finest. However, I'm sure that most customers intending on buying a copy are purchasing Hamlet for study at school, sixth form or university. In my opinion the New Cambridge Shakespeare provide the best copies of Shakespears plays for students. An in depth introduction is provided, giving contextual information, interpretations, explanation of themes and issues, critical opinions and examples of various productions of the play.
The notes throughout are concise and informative, explaining away every bizzare metaphor, latin phrase or ancient word that you might fail to understand (even helping out my A2 English lecturer at one point!). The text is very clear on the page, making reading aloud easier, there is also lots of room for you to write notes on each page.
This copy is worth splashing out the extra money on, especially if you find Shakespeare quite difficult to read and understand. This edition will explain everthing you need to know to understand the play.

Hamlet
This book is a good copy of Hamlet for it has the actual pages of the play with each play has the definitions of each part on the opposite page, making it easier to read Hamlet thus understanding Skakespeare.