Hamlet » (1st Edition)

William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in April 1564, and his birth is traditionally celebrated on April 23. The facts of his life, known from surviving documents, are sparse. He was one of eight children born to John Shakespeare, a merchant of some standing in his community. William probably went to the King’s New School in Stratford, but he had no university education. In November 1582, at the age of eighteen, he married Anne Hathaway, eight years his senior, who was pregnant with their first child, Susanna. She was born on May 26, 1583. Twins, a boy, Hamnet ( who would die at age eleven), and a girl, Judith, were born in 1585. By 1592 Shakespeare had gone to London working as an actor and already known as a playwright. A rival dramatist, Robert Greene, referred to him as “an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers.” Shakespeare became a principal shareholder and playwright of the successful acting troupe, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men (later under James I, called the King’s Men). In 1599 the Lord Chamberlain’s Men built and occupied the Globe Theater in Southwark near the Thames River. Here many of Shakespeare’s plays were performed by the most famous actors of his time, including Richard Burbage, Will Kempe, and Robert Armin. In addition to his 37 plays, Shakespeare had a hand in others, including Sir Thomas More and The Two Noble Kinsmen, and he wrote poems, including Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. His 154 sonnets were published, probably without his authorization, in 1609. In 1611 or 1612 he gave up his lodgings in London and devoted more and more time to retirement in Stratford, though he continued writing such plays as The Tempest and Henry VII until about 1613. He died on April 23 1616, and was buried in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford. No collected edition of his plays was published during his life-time, but in 1623 two members of his acting company, John Heminges and Henry Condell, put together the great collection now called the First Folio.

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About the Series
About This Volume

PART I. HAMLET: THE COMPLETE TEXT

Introduction: Biographical and Historical Contexts

The Complete Text [1974 text, with notes, from The Riverside Shakespeare, edited by G. Blakemore Evans]
Notes on the Text Textual Notes

PART II. HAMLET: A CASE STUDY IN CONTEMPORARY CRITICISM

A Critical History of Hamlet

Feminist Criticism and Hamlet
What Is Feminist Criticism?
Feminist Criticism: Selected Bibliography A Feminist Perspective:
Elaine Showalter, Representing Ophelia: Women, Madness, and the Responsibilities of Feminist Criticism

Psychoanalytic Criticism and Hamlet
What Is Psychoanalytic Criticism?
Psychoanalytic Criticism: A Selected Bibliography A Psychoanalytic Perspective:
Janet Adelman, "Man and Wife Is One Flesh": Hamlet and the Confrontation with the Maternal Body

Deconstruction and Hamlet
What Is Deconstruction?
Deconstruction: A Selected Bibliography A Deconstructionist Perspective:
Marjorie Garber, Hamlet: Giving Up the Ghost

Marxist Criticism and Hamlet
What Is Marxist Criticism?
Marxist Criticism: A Selected Bibliography A Marxist Perspective:
Michael D. Bristol, "Funeral-Bak'd-Meats": Carnival and the Carnivalesque in Hamlet

New Historicism and Hamlet
What Is New Historicism?
New Historicism: A SelectedBibliography A New Historicist Perspective:
Karin S. Coddon, "Suche Strange Desygns": Madness, Subjectivity, and Treason in Hamlet and Elizabethan Culture

Glossary of Critical and Theoretical Terms

About the Contributors