Hamlet and the Vision of Darkness

Rhodri Lewis

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780691210926
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism of Shakespeare
• Index: Literature

An acclaimed new interpretation of Shakespeare's Hamlet Hamlet and the Vision of Darkness is a radical new interpretation of the most famous play in the English language. By exploring Shakespeare's engagements with the humanist traditions of early modern England and Europe, Rhodri Lewis reveals a Hamlet unseen for centuries: an innovative, coherent, and exhilaratingly bleak tragedy in which the governing ideologies of Shakespeare's age are scrupulously upended. Recovering a work of far greater magnitude than the tragedy of a young man who cannot make up his mind, Lewis shows that in Hamlet, as in King Lear, Shakespeare confronts his audiences with a universe that received ideas are powerless to illuminate—and where everyone must find their own way through the dark.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Preface and Acknowledgements
• Note on the Text
• Introduction Hamlet within Hamlet
• Chapter 1 Hamlet, Humanism, and Performing the Self
• Chapter 2 Hamlet, Hunting, and the Nature of Things
• Chapter 3 Hamlet as Historian
• Chapter 4 Hamlet as Poet
• Chapter 5 Hamlet as Philosopher
• Conclusion Shakespearean Tragedy and the Death of Humanism
• Appendix: How Old Is Hamlet?
• Bibliography
• Index
• A Note on the Type