Reading Shakespeare's Hamlet

This book approaches Shakespeare as utterly a man of the theatre, a professional actor before he was a playwright and a resident dramatist who knew intimately the actors for whom he wrote. It continues by 'Approaching Hamlet' in that light, and as a revenge tragedy deliberately overloaded with complications. The middle chapters look in detail at the 'Actors and Players' of the drama, starting with the Ghost and ending with 'the best actors in the world', and at Shakespeare's favourite 'Acts and Devices' as deployed within it. A final chapter considers Hamlet and Twelfth Night, written and premiered in close succession, as an unexpectedly resonant pair, a surprisingly funny revenge tragedy and a surprisingly bleak revenge comedy that for the first audiences would have complemented one another. The annotated Bibliography includes the current major editions of Hamlet, the major film-adaptations, and a selection of both the best criticism and the most useful websites.