William Shakespeare's Hamlet : a sourcebook / edited by Sean McEvoy.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [173]-177) and index.

1. Contexts -- Revenge and tyrannicide -- The theatre and politics -- Marriage -- Madness and melancholy -- A summary of the story of 'Amleth' in Saxo Grammaticus' Historicae Danicae (1514) -- A homily against disobedience and wilful rebellion (1574) -- The education of a Christian prince (1516) / Desiderius Erasmus -- The essays : 'of revenge' / Francis Bacon -- 2. Interpretations -- Pre-Romantic criticism : can we admire the prince? -- Romantic criticism : why we should identify with the prince -- Modernist criticism : below the surface -- Late twentieth-century criticism (1) : psychoanalysis -- Late twentieth-century criticism (2) : history and politics -- The ancient and modern stages surveyed (1699) / James Drake -- Soliloquy, or advice to an author (1710) / Anthony Cooper -- Notes to the edition of Shakespeare's plays (1765) / Samuel Johnson -- 'Bristol lecture' (1813) / Samuel Taylor Coleridge -- Characters of Shakespeare's plays (1817) / William Hazlitt -- The interpretation of dreams (1900) / Sigmund Freud -- Shakespearean tragedy (1904) / A.C. Bradley -- 'Hamlet' in selected essays (1919) / T.S. Eliot -- What happens in 'Hamlet' (1935) / John Dover Wilson -- 'Telmah' (1986) / Terence Hawkes -- 'Desire and anxiety : circulations of sexuality in Shakespearean drama' (1992, essay originally published 1988) / Valerie Traub -- 'Are Shakespeare's tragic heroes "fatally flawed"? : discuss' (1989) / Graham Holderness -- '"Documents in madness" : reading madness and gender in Shakespeare's tragedies and early modern culture' / Carol Thomas Neely -- Cultural materialism and the politics of dissident reading (1992) / Alan Sinfield -- 'Watching Hamlet watching : Lacan, Shakespeare and the mirror/stage' (1996) / Philip Armstrong -- Reading Shakespeare historically / Lisa Jardine -- Revenge tragedy (1996) / John Kerrigan -- Shakespeare / Kiernan Ryan -- Hamlet in purgatory (2002) / Stephen Greenblatt -- Robert Hapgood, Shakespeare in production : 'Hamlet' / Edwin Booth -- Ronald Bryden (1967) on Peter Hall's production of Hamlet / David Warner -- Steven Pimlott, interviewed by the sourcebook editor / Samuel West -- Directed by Laurence Olivier : Anthony B. Dawson, Shakespeare in performance : 'Hamlet' -- Directed by Franco Zeffirelli : Neil Taylor, 'the films of Hamlet' -- Directed by Kenneth Branagh : Julie Sanders, 'the end of history and the last man' -- 3. Key passages -- The texts of Hamlet -- Plot summary -- A note on the passages -- Act 1, scene 1, lines 1-22 : sentry duty at Elsinore -- Act 1, scene 1, lines 61-119 : news of Fortinbras -- Act 1, scene 2, lines 64-86 : Claudius and Hamlet's first exchange -- Act 1, scene 2, lines 129-59 : first soliloquy -- Hamlet's private grief -- Act 1, scene 5, lines 9-112 : the ghost speaks to Hamlet -- Act 2, scene 2, lines 544-601 : second soliloquy -- Hamlet's response to the player's speech -- Act 3, scene 1, lines 56-88 : Hamlet's third soliloquy -- Act 3, scene 2, lines 181-264 : the performance of The murder of Gonzago -- Act 3, scene 3, lines 36-98 : Claudius prays; Hamlet's opportunity to strike -- Act 3, scene 4, lines 53-160 : the central part of the 'closet' scene -- Hamlet and Gertrude alone together -- Act 4, scene 5, lines 16-168 : Ophelia's madness and Laertes's rebellion -- Act 5, scene 1, lines 1-118 : the gravediggers -- Act 5, scene 2, lines 213-408 : the final duel; the deaths of Gertrude, Claudius, Laertes and Hamlet and the entry of Fortinbras -- 4. Further reading.