William Shakespeare's Hamlet, Edited and Annotated by Gideon Rappaport

Book Overview

In this thoroughly annotated edition, teacher and theatrical dramaturge Gideon Rappaport aims at nothing less than a radical restoration of the meaning of Hamlet.

Though it is one of Shakespeare's greatest and most beloved plays, Hamlet has been repeatedly misunderstood. This is partly because audience assumptions about the nature of reality have undergone huge changes between Shakespeare's time and ours. In the name of those different assumptions, modern scholars, play directors, and film producers have often wrenched Shakespeare's play out of its intended meaning. The result is that for most people what this great play is really about has been almost entirely obscured.

Founded on the best scholarship of the past, William Shakespeare's Hamlet not only provides precise glosses on the meanings of particular words and phrases as they would have been understood by Shakespeare's audience and specific suggestions for actors and directors. More importantly, it clarifies the profound dramatic through-line of the play. The commentary in the annotation demonstrates that the story of Shakespeare's Hamlet is not of a man "who could not make up his mind," or who thinks too much to act, or who exhibits the relativity of all values, or who is Oedipally in love with his mother, or who melancholically wishes he were dead. These and other non-Shakespearean interpretations superimposed on the play in the last hundred years vanish into insignificance in the face of the actual story of Hamlet as revealed in the original meanings of its speeches and their interrelation. That story is of a man who, in a dangerous and paradoxical moral situation-which stands for the situation of every one of us-becomes guilty of a tragic moral fall and then undergoes a spiritual turning leading to redemption.

This edition is uniquely structured in a side-by-side format-text on the left and annotation on the right, with line numbers between them for ease of reference to both. It features an introductory essay providing an overview of the play's meaning as detailed in the annotation. William Shakespeare's Hamlet will be valuable to all serious students of the play: general readers, college and graduate students, teachers and scholars, actors, directors, and literary critics.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0CQ4D6JB4
• ISBN13: 9798218112592
• Release Date: December 2023
• Publisher: One Mind Good Presss
• Length: 402 Pages
• Weight: 2.69 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 8.5" x 11.0"

Customer Reviews

You will be absorbed into the story.

Hamlet is Hamlet. If you are buying the revised edition, it is for the add-on information. This really is "The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark," and not only the prince but also his family. Not only his family but also his friends. The tragedy started in the previous generation. Will it end with Hamlet? Many people are interested in dissecting underlying themes and reading more into the characters' actions than was probably intended. Many phrases from Hamlet now challenge the Bible for those popular quotes that no one remembers where they came from. The real fun is in just reading the story, and as you find that it is not as foreign as you may have thought, you see many characters like these around you today. A synopsis: Old Hamlet conquered Old Fortinbras, seizing Fortinbras' land. Now that Old Hamlet is dead, Young Fortinbras wants his land back and is willing to take it by force. Meanwhile, back in Dänemark, Prince Hamlet, who is excessively grieving the loss of his father, the king, gets an interesting insight from his father's ghost. Looks like Old Hamlet was a victim of a "murder most foul". On top of that, Hamlet’s Uncle and Mother even get married before the funeral meats are cold. The story is about Hamlet's vacillation as to what to do about his father's murder. However, he does surprise many with his persistence and insight. You will find many great movie presentations and imitations of the story; this is an intriguing read, but it was really meant to be watched.