This self-contained, free-standing volume gives readers the Second Quarto text. In his illustrated introduction to the play’s historical, cultural, and performance contexts, Neil Taylor presents a thorough survey of critical approaches to the play. He addresses the challenges faced in reading, editing, or acting a play with the depth of content and tradition that Hamlet possesses. He also establishes the historical and cultural context in which the play was written and explains the arguments about the merits and deficiencies of the First and Second Quarto and the First Folio. Taylor points to the many novelists, both men and women, whose work refers to or bears commonalities with Hamlet, to suggest an ongoing to need to resolve "the continuing mystery of Hamlet" in print and on stage. An appendix contains the additional passages found only in the 1623 text, and other appendices on the editorial process, the traditions regarding the act division at 3.4/4.1, casting, and music are also included. Table of Contents
List of illustrations
General editors’ preface
Preface
INTRODUCTION
The challenges of Hamlet
The challenge of acting Hamlet
The challenge of editing Hamlet
The challenge to the greatness of Hamlet: Hamlet versus Lear
Hamlet in our time
The soliloquies and the modernity of Hamlet
Hamlet and Freud
Reading against the Hamlet tradition
Hamlet in Shakespeare’s time
Hamlet at the turn of the century
The challenge of dating Hamlet
Was there an earlier Hamlet play?
Are there any early references to Shakespeare’s play?
Can we date Hamlet in relation to other contemporary plays?
Hamlet’s first performances
The story of Hamlet
Murder most foul
An antic disposition
‘Sentences’, speeches and thoughts
The composition of Hamlet
The quartos and the Folio
The quartos
The First Folio
The relationship of Q2 to Q1
The relationship of F to Q2
What, then, of Q1?
Editorial practice
Why a three-text edition?
Hamlet on stage and screen
Hamlet and his points
Enter the director
Hamlet and politics
Novel Hamlets
Hamlet meets Fielding, Goethe, Dickens and others
Hamlet and women novelists
Prequels and sequels
The continuing mystery of Hamlet
THE TRAGICAL HISTORY OF HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK (The Second Quarto, 1604-5)
APPENDICES
Appendix 1: Folio-only passages
Appendix 2: Textual discussion
Appendix 3: Editorial conventions, sample edited passages and a comparison of scenes across the three texts
Appendix 4: The act division at 3.4/4.1
Appendix 5: Casting
Appendix 6: Music
Abbreviations and references
Abbreviations used in notes
Works by and partly by Shakespeare
Editions of Shakespeare collated
Other works cited
Index
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