Reviews for Hamlet

The average rating for Hamlet based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-08-20 00:00:00 Sara Friedman Fantastic new historicist reading on Shakespearean England. This is an antidote to the stale histories of the Elizabethan age given by the likes of E. M. W. Tilyard. It's also an interesting read.

Review # 2 was written on 2008-03-06 00:00:00 Mike Griffin Ground-breaking and influential study of Hamlet in that it mainstreamed the Freudian reading of the play--Hamlet's problem is an Oedipus complex. Inventive, if dubious, attempts to rationalize the play in light of events in Shakespeare's life that brought his own father issues and sexual disgust to the fore (written shortly after Shakespeare's mistress betrayed him with the young man praised in the sonnet sequence), rather more convincing links to myth and attempts to explain changes from the source material in light of Sghakespeare's playing up of the Oedipal stuff (though Jones goes from acknowledging that we can't be sure which plot innovations were Shakespeare's and which carried over from the ur-Hamlet to assuming that said plot innovations reflect Shakespeare's own modifications and reflect his own concerns. Ultimately not in my opinion a convincing case, as with pretty much any reading that attempts to expain everything in light of one overarching concern.