Paul Cantor provides a new and clearly structured introduction to Shakespeare's most famous tragedy. Hamlet's status as tragic hero and the central enigma of the delayed revenge are seen in the light of the play's historical place in the Renaissance at the crossroads of the Christian and the classical traditions. The dramatic and poetic techniques used in the play are discussed, and a final chapter deals with the uniquely varied reception of Hamlet on the stage and in literature generally, from the seventeenth century to the present day.

Paul Cantor provides a new and clearly structured introduction to Shakespeare's most famous tragedy. Hamlet's status as tragic hero and the central enigma of the delayed revenge are seen in the light of the play's historical place in the Renaissance at the crossroads of the Christian and the classical traditions. The dramatic and poetic techniques used in the play are discussed, and a final chapter deals with the uniquely varied reception of Hamlet on the stage and in literature generally, from the seventeenth century to the present day.

"In this useful guide, Paul Cantor provides a structured introduction to Shakespeare's most famous tragedy. Cantor examines Hamlet's status as tragic hero and the central enigma of his delayed revenge in light of the play's Renaissance context. He offers students a discussion of the dramatic and poetic techniques used in the play. In the final chapter he deals with the varied reception of Hamlet on the stage and in literature generally from the seventeenth century to the present day."--BOOK JACKET

"Paul A. Cantor first probed Shakespeare's Roman plays--Coriolanus, Julius Caesar, and Antony and Cleopatra--in his landmark Shakespeare's Rome. With Shakespeare's Roman Trilogy, he now argues that these plays form an integrated trilogy that portrays the tragedy not simply of their protagonists but of an entire political community. Cantor analyzes the way Shakespeare chronicles the rise and fall of the Roman Republic and the emergence of the Roman Empire. The transformation of the ancient city into a cosmopolitan empire marks the end of the era of civic virtue in antiquity, but it also opens up new spiritual possibilities that Shakespeare correlates with the rise of Christianity and thus the first stirrings of the medieval and the modern worlds. More broadly, Cantor places Shakespeare's plays in a long tradition of philosophical speculation about Rome, with special emphasis on Machiavelli and Nietzsche, two thinkers who provide important clues on how to read Shakespeare's works. In a pathbreaking chapter, he undertakes the first systematic comparison of Shakespeare and Nietzsche on Rome, exploring their central point of contention: Did Christianity corrupt the Roman Empire or was the corruption of the Empire the precondition of the rise of Christianity? Bringing Shakespeare into dialogue with other major thinkers about Rome, Shakespeare's Roman Trilogy reveals the true profundity of the Roman plays."--

For more than forty years, Paul Cantor’s Shakespeare’s Rome has been a foundational work in the field of politics and literature. While many critics assumed that the Roman plays do not reflect any special knowledge of Rome, Cantor was one of the first to argue that they are grounded in a profound understanding of the Roman regime and its changes over time. Taking Shakespeare seriously as a political thinker, Cantor suggests that his Roman plays can be profitably studied in the context of the classical republican tradition in political philosophy. In Shakespeare’s Rome , Cantor examines the political settings of Shakespeare’s Roman plays, Coriolanus and Antony and Cleopatra , with references as well to Julius Caesar . Cantor shows that Shakespeare presents a convincing portrait of Rome in different eras of its history, contrasting the austere republic of Coriolanus , with its narrow horizons and martial virtues, and the cosmopolitan empire of Antony and Cleopatra , with its “immortal longings” and sophistication bordering on decadence.

"In Gilligan Unbound, a distinguished Shakespeare scholar and literary critic proves once and for all that popular culture can be every bit as complex, meaningful, and provocative as the most celebrated works of literature - and a lot more fun. Paul Cantor analyzes and interprets a wide variety of classic television programs with the same seriousness, care, and creativity he would Hamlet or Macbeth to reveal how dramatically America's image of itself has evolved from the 1960s to the present." "Cantor demonstrates how, during the 1960s, Gilligan's Island and Star Trek reflected America's faith in liberal democracy and our willingness to project it universally. Gilligan's Island, Cantor argues, is based on the premise that a representative group of Americans could literally be dumped in the middle of nowhere and still prevail under the worst of circumstances. Star Trek took American optimism even further by trying to make the entire galaxy safe for democracy. Despite the famous Prime Directive, Captain Kirk and his crew remade planet after planet in the image of an idealized 1960s America." -- From publisher's website.