As a means of access to this play, this unique collection of primary materials and commentary will help studtnt and teacher explore historical, literary, theatrical, social, and cultural issues related to the play. In an approach unique for this series, Corum guides the reader through a literary analysis of Hamlet's options.

Shakespeare's Hamlet. regarded by many as “the world's most famous play by the world's most famus writer,” is one of the most complex, demanding, discussed, and influential literary texts in English. As a means of access to this play, this unique collection of primary materials and commentary will help studtnt and teacher explore historical, literary, theatrical, social, and cultural issues related to the play. In an approach unique for this series, Corum guides the reader through a literary analysis of Hamlet's options.He examines the popular theatres of the day in which Shakespeare and his company first produced Haet and discusses the genre of tragedy in which it is written. Through judicious selection of primary historical documents, the work provides contexts for understanding Hamlet's melancholy, the ghost of Hamlet's father, the theme of revenge, and Hamlet's feigned madness. The chapters contain a variety of materi ls,many of which are not readily available elsewhere: essays, poems, histories, treatises, official documer ts stories, religious tracts, homilies, memoirs, engravings, village records, and fifteen illustrations.

Illustrations

Introduction

1. Method and Social Geography

 FROM:

 Niccol6 Machiavelli, The Prince (1532)

2. Theatre and Tragedy

 FROM:

 Phillip Stubbes, The Anatomie of Abuses. Contayning

 a Discoverie, or briefe Summarie of such Notable

 Vices and Imperfections, as now raigne in many

 Christian Countreyes of the Worlde (1583)

 An official petition submitted by the Lord Mayor and

 the Aldermen of the City of London to Queen

 Elizabeth's Privy Council 28 July 1597

 Thomas Nashe, Pierce Penilesse his supplication to

 the Diuell (1592)

3. Literary Analysis: Hamlet's Options

4. Man, Melancholy, and Suicide

5. Enter Ghost... Exit Ghost

 FROM:

 Reginald of Piperno, Supplementum to Aquinas's

 Summa Theologica, Question LXIX (c. 1274)

 Ordinances of the Gild of the Palmers (1284)

 Noel Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, Being the

 Psichologie,~ or Treatise upon Apparitions and

 Spirits, of Disembodied Souls, Phantom Figures,

 Strange Prodigies, and of Other Miracles and

 Marvels (1588)

 Pierre la Primaudaye, The French Academie (1594)

 The Geneva Bible, Deuteronomie XVII: 10-12 and

 Iohn IIII:1 (1560)

 Ludwig [Lewes] Lavater, Of ghostes and spirites,

 walking at nyght, And of straunge noyses, crackes,

 and sundrie forewarnings (1570)

 James vI of Scotland, The Thirde Booke of

 Daemonologie (1597)

 Pierre le Loyer, IIII Livres des spectres ou

 apparitions (1586)

 Euripides, Hecabe (425 B.C.)

 Seneca, Troades (A.D. 65)

 Jasper Heywood's Troas, a translation of Seneca's

 Troades (1559)

6. Revenge (,) the Crime

 FROM:

 Lucius Apuleius, The Golden Ass being the

 Metamorphoses (c. A.D. 150)

 The Hystorie of Hamblet (1608)

 Sir William Segar, The Book of Honor and Armes

 (1590)

 Stephen Hawes, Pastime of Pleasure (1509)

 Anthony Copley, A Fig for Fortune (1596)

 Sir John Harrington, "Breefe Notes and

 Rembraunces," Nugae Antiquae (c. 1600-1601)

7. Antic Dispositions: The Hero as Fool

 FROM:

 The Geneva Bible, The First Boke of Samuel

 XXI:10-15; XXII:I (1560)

 The Roman History written in Latine by Titus Livius

 [Livy], II, lvi-lix (A.D. 17)

 The Hystorie of Hamblet (1608)

8. Gertrude, Thy Name Is Woman

 FROM:

 Sir William Segar, Honor Military and Civill (1602)

 Durham Ecclesiastical Court Records (c. 1560)

 The Geneva Bible, The Third Boke of Moses, called

 Leuiticus XVIII:6, 16; XX:21 (1560)

 Thomas Becon, "Of the Office of Widows,"

 Catechism (1564)

 An Homily on the State of Matrimony (1563)

 John Knox, The First Blast of the Trumpet against

 the Monstrous Regiment of Women (1558)

 Jane Anger her Protection for Women (1589)

9. Over Ophelia's Dead Body

 FROM:

 Michael MacDonald and Terence R. Murphy,

 Sleepless Souls: Suicide in Early Modem England(1990)

 Minutes and Accounts of the Corporation of

 Stratford-upon-Avon, Vol. III (1577-1586)

 Carolus Musitanus, De Morbis Mulierum (1709)

Conclusion

Index