William Shakespeare’s Hamlet

The Atlantic Critical Studies

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Every time Shakespeare is read or taught one faces a challenge: how to make him comprehensible to the eager student. This is what the present work daringly sets out to do. It provides the reader with biographical socio-political and the literary background of Shakespeare.

Within his three genres of plays tragedies comedies and histories Shakespeare showed great variety. Taking up tragedy only all four of the prevailing types are to be found in him. Macbeth is a conqueror tragedy Othello a villain tragedy Romeo and Juliet domestic tragedy and Hamlet the play under discussion exemplifies the highly popular contemporary mode a revenge tragedy, yet these labels are but superficial tags utterly unable to express the complexity and richness of his plays.

Hamlet is unarguably Shakespeares most popular tragedy. In characterisation theme and poetic beauty as exhibited in the famous soliloquies the play excels all other plays and playwrights. It is a remarkable example of a typical Shakespearean tragedy in which the protagonist is not betrayed by what is false within but becomes a victim of tragic circumstances which lead to tragic consequences.

This book in The Atlantic Critical Studies series focuses on the major elements of the play. A scene wise critical summary of the text is given in order to familiarise the reader with the play. Numerous quotations from the text have also been given. Different elements of drama have been analysed along with the views of renowned critics. Classical theories as well as more recent critical views have been given which makes the book useful to the teachers as well as students of English literature especially Shakespeare. Select bibliography has been provided to stimulate further reading and index is given for easy location of terms.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Ratri Ray

Ratri Ray is a retired University Professor and Head of the Deptt. of English, Patna University. As a student she had a unique career, for she had been awarded three gold medals for her B.A. results and two more for her M.A. results. She obtained her Ph.D. degree in 1981, her field of work being the little-known nineteenth-century poet, T.L. Beddoes. Later, after two decades of extensive and intensive studies, she obtained the D.Litt. degree, the field this time being the comparative study of two mystical poets, Francis Thompson and Nishikanto, a Bengali poet. Her studies of six Shakespearean plays according to the Rasavada had been serialised during the 80s and 90s in the cultural periodical Mother India, published from Pondicherry. She has published numerous research articles in literary journals and anthologies all over India. one of these contributions, a serialised study of 28 articles on the element of myth in Sri aurobindo's poetry is shortly to be published in the book form. At present her research articles on the plays of Sri Aurobindo studied in the light of Rasavada are being serialised in srinvantu, a periodical published from Kolkata.