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Title: Hamlet (Cliffs Complete Study Editions) by William Shakespeare, Sidney Lamb ISBN: 0-8220-1416-5 Publisher: Cliffs Notes Pub. Date: July, 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $6.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.21 (138 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Hamlet: Timeless Classic
Comment: If you could read only one thing in your lifetime Hamlet should be that one thing. It is Shakespeare's best work by far, and within its pages is more meaning than you could find within the pages of an entire library full of books, or plays as the case may be. A mere review, a couple words, cannot do Hamlet justice. At times I realize that the language of Shakespeare can be difficult that is why I recommend the Folger version because it helps to make the images expressed by Shakespeare's characters clear to the reader, and allows them to get their own deep personal meaning from Hamlet, Shakespeare's greatest work, with out being bogged down in trying to decipher and interpret his antiquarian English. Don't just listen to what I say, or read what I write, read the play on your own outside the cumbersome restraints of a classroom and see for yourself what I mean.
Rating: 5
Summary: Don't Read This Play
Comment: There they lay, dead on the page, all the incomprehensible words of Shakespeare. I saw them all through school, starting with Macbeth in sixth grade. Then years later a girlfriend recorded on cassette for me the Hamlet of Paul Scofield and I played it night after night through the next two years as I commuted to school. Driving in the dead middle of the night through the pine forests of south Alabama the world I knew vanished, and all that remained was the world of Hamlet-- the prince maddened by grief, the treacherous uncle, the uncomprehending Gertrude, innocent Ophelia, her passionate brother and foolish father, faithful Horatio, the players and all the rest-- more alive to me than my own life.
To know Hamlet you cannot read it, you must hear it, whether on stage or elsewhere. And the more you hear it the more its lines come back to you, whether in earnest or in whimsy-- "safely stowed", "meet it is I set it down, that one may smile and smile, and be a villain", "thus conscience doth make cowards of us all, and thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought", "alas, poor Yorick. I knew him Horatio. A fellow of infinite jest." And so many more. If there is any hope that you will fall in love with language, then you will fall for Hamlet.
There is even some sense that you will never have completely spoken English until you have said the lines of Hamlet.
Paul Scofield has never been replaced in my affections by another Hamlet. If anyone knows where that recording might be found, I'd like to know.
Rating: 5
Summary: Chasing Shakespeare, finding Hamlet
Comment: The sheer magnitude and dramatic measure of Shakespeare is never to be missed -- but it can be a challenge tackling the linguistics of sixteenth century English, especially text from the original Folio published by Applause.
For those (like me) who need a leg up, the Durband (Editor) additions of Shakespeare's work are an invaluable help. For the ambitious reader, an additional resource in cracking the code of 16th century grammar comes in the form of Adamson, Hunter, Magnusson, Thomposon, & Wales's "Reading Shakespeare's Dramatic Language, A guide." Finally, an invaluable guild to understanding not only Shakespeare but also any dramatic structure comes from David Ball's "Backwards and Forwards, A Technical Manual for Reading Plays." With all these resources firmly in hand, I chased Shakespeare, and managed, in some sense, to tackle "Hamlet," the first Shakespeare play I had ever read . . .
So what's the play about -- other than ~3-4 hours of live performance? This question actually decomposes (like Polonius: "if you find him not within this month, you shall nose him as you go up the stairs into the lobby", 4.3 (Act 4, Scene 3) into 3 questions: what's does the play "mean," what's its "theme," and what's the play "about?"
I've actually no idea what it means, and I'm not sure I understand what is meant by 'what does it mean?' so I'll let that go . . .
What are it's themes? That's easy: revenge, parental fealty, trust. Most helpful is the last question: what's the play about? I've read that constraints on the answer to this question are: it should be short, 1-2 sentences, and if you were telling it to someone who knows little about the play, it should 'draw the person in: make them want to know more,' so here goes:
Hamlet is a play about a son who pretends to lose his mind while attempting to avenge the perfect murder of his father, and he loses his own life in the process.
This isn't particularly poetic, but it does capture the basic main plot line, and it's underscores the tragic nature of Hamlet. The murder of Hamlet's father is perfect: it's takes a supernatural event to uncover the murder, i.e., the ghost of his father has to come back and tell Hamlet what happened. These are the two main events that drive the plot: the murder is perfect, and Hamlet chooses to take up the task of avenging his father with absolutely not one shred, not one bit, of evidence that Claudius killed King Hamlet.
And this is just how the play reads, how it looks to the audience: If you didn't know the story, the earliest point you might believe that the ghost really was telling the truth is Claudius' line #59, 3.1: "How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!" And what exactly is he feeling so guilty about anyway? It is unclear, not explicitly stated (e.g., it could be guilt for marrying Hamlet's mother so quickly, which is what Hamlet is initially bummed out and angry about, and justifying the quick marriage is in part what Claudius' initial speech is all about in 1.2.) And up until 3.2, Hamlet's not even sure about the veracity of the ghost -- so he sets a 'mouse trap' ("the play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king"). Up until 3.2 (at the earliest), the audience doesn't really know if Claudius murdered the king, and they only know this with certainty during Claudius's confession of the murder in 3.3.
And if the audience (and Hamlet) are not absolutely sure about Claudius until Act 3, Scene 3, what about the other characters in the play? They never know. All the way through the play, to them, Hamlet looks just like the guy he's pretending to be: someone who's coming unglued. Take out Claudius's confession in 3.3, and I don't think the audience would believe Hamlet or the ghost. To them, Hamlet would be seen as he is seen through the eyes of all the characters (except Horatio): they'd think Hamlet is crazy, and to his mother (3.4), he's ranting and raving about a murder, and yes, there is a murder, but not of King Hamlet -- it's of Polonius, and yes, there is a murderer, but not Claudius -- it's Hamlet! Killing Polonius was a BIG mistake: Claudius sends Hamlet away to England, to be killed. Hamlet, far from being a man incapable of action, is "acting" every moment, struggling with one (huge) obstacle after another . . .
Hamlet's a brilliant play, a masterpiece, though I'm not convinced it's Shakespeare's best, plot-wise -- but certainty character-wise: as Bloom so aptly puts it: it is "The Invention of the Human." Shakespeare dramatizes a man that's *almost* (not totally) paralyzed with fear and uncertainty until most of the way through Act 4 (these are his first obstacles), and one main action he takes up to the end of act 4 is trying to satisfy for himself that Claudius really did kill his father, and avoid detection that that's what he's trying to do -- by acting crazy. A great play, and a full measure of the genius of Shakespeare.
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Title: Macbeth : Modern English Version Side-By-Side With Full Original Text (Shakespeare Made Easy) by William Shakespeare, Alan Durband ISBN: 0812035712 Publisher: Barron's Educational Series Pub. Date: 01 February, 1985 List Price(USD): $6.95 |
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Title: King Lear by William Shakespeare ISBN: 0671722727 Publisher: Washington Square Press Pub. Date: 01 May, 1993 List Price(USD): $3.99 |
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Title: Macbeth by William Shakespeare ISBN: 0671722751 Publisher: Washington Square Press Pub. Date: 01 August, 1992 List Price(USD): $3.99 |
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Title: Othello by William Shakespeare ISBN: 0671722816 Publisher: Washington Square Press Pub. Date: 01 July, 1993 List Price(USD): $3.99 |
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Title: The TEMPEST by William Shakespeare ISBN: 0671722905 Publisher: Washington Square Press Pub. Date: 01 May, 1994 List Price(USD): $3.99 |
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