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This volume bears potent testimony, not only to the dense complexity of Hamlet's emotional dynamics, but also to the enduring fascination that audiences, adaptors, and academics have with what may well be Shakespeare's moodiest play. Its chapters explore emotion in Hamlet, as well as the myriad emotions surrounding Hamlet's debts to the medieval past, its relationship to the cultural milieu in which it was produced, its celebrated performance history, and its profound impact beyond the early modern era. Its component chapters are not unified by a single methodological approach. Some deal with a single emotion in Hamlet, while others analyse the emotional trajectory of a single character, and still others focus on a given emotional expression (e.g., sighing or crying). Some bring modern methodologies for studying emotion to bear on Hamlet, others explore how Hamlet anticipates modern discourses on emotion, and still others ask how Hamlet itself can complicate and contribute to our current understanding of emotion.
List of contents
1. 'Prologue to the omen coming on' - Robert White.- 2.'in a dream of passion': Introducing Hamlet and Emotion - Paul Megna and Bríd Phillips.- Part I: 'Between who?': Influences and Inter-Texts.- 3. Hamlet and Tragic Emotion - Indira Ghose.- 4.A Conjuration of Patrick: A Legacy of Doubt and Imagining in Hamlet - Michael D. Barbezat.- 5. Fear and Wonder: Shakespeare's Ghost in the Fireside Tradition - Catherine Belsey.- 6. 'For by the image of my cause, I see / The portraiture of his': Hamlet and the Imitation of Emotion - Richard Meek.- 7. 'Each subtlest passion, with her source and spring': Hamlet, Sejanus and the Concealment of Emotion - Jane Rickard.- Part II: 'I know not "seems"': Expression and Sensation.- 8. Hamlet's Tears - Dympna Callaghan.- 9. Hamlet's 'Spendthrift Sigh': Emotional Breathing on and off the Stage - Naya Tsentourou.- 10. 'Eyes without feeling, feeling withoutsight': The Sense of Sight in Hamlet - Bríd Phillips.- Part III: 'this quintessence of dust': Character.- 11. Horatio as Author: Storytelling and Stoic Tragedy in Hamlet - Jeffrey R. Wilson.- 12. 'A king of shreds and patches': Claudius, Clothes, Feeling - Lisa Hopkins.- 13. 'Something After?': Hamlet and Dread - Bradley Irish.- Part IV: 'Remember me': Performance and Adaptation.- 14. Misremembering Hamlet at Elsinore- Kathryn Prince.- 15. 'Speech falters speech flinches when horror lifts a fist to it': Action, Emotion, and Inertia in Three Hamlet Variations - Stephen Chinna.- 16. Shakespeare's Hamlet and Stoppard's Guildenstern Leap between Un-Existentialist Anguish and Un-Absurdist Happiness - Paul Megna.- 17. Horatio: Loyal Friend of Hamlet and Nutshell - Robert White.
About the author
Paul Megna is Honorary Research Fellow with the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions at The University of Western Australia.
Bríd Phillips is Honorary Research Fellow with the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions at The University of Western Australia, and Lecturer in Health Humanities, Health and Medical Sciences, at The University of Western Australia.
R. S. White is Winthrop Professor of English at The University of Western Australia, and a Chief Investigator for the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions.
Summary
This volume bears potent testimony, not only to the dense complexity of Hamlet’s emotional dynamics, but also to the enduring fascination that audiences, adaptors, and academics have with what may well be Shakespeare’s moodiest play. Its chapters explore emotion in Hamlet, as well as the myriad emotions surrounding Hamlet’s debts to the medieval past, its relationship to the cultural milieu in which it was produced, its celebrated performance history, and its profound impact beyond the early modern era. Its component chapters are not unified by a single methodological approach. Some deal with a single emotion in Hamlet, while others analyse the emotional trajectory of a single character, and still others focus on a given emotional expression (e.g., sighing or crying). Some bring modern methodologies for studying emotion to bear on Hamlet, others explore how Hamlet anticipates modern discourses on emotion, and still others ask how Hamlet itself can complicate and contribute to our current understanding of emotion.
Additional text
“This volume bears potent testimony, not only to the dense complexity of Hamlet’s emotional dynamics, but also to the enduring fascination that audiences, adaptors, and academics have with what may well be Shakespeare’s moodiest play. Its chapters explore emotion in Hamlet, as well as the myriad emotions surrounding Hamlet’s debts to the medieval past, its relationship to the cultural milieu in which it was produced, its celebrated performance history, and its profound impact beyond the early modern era.” (Scriptable, rtreview.org, Issue 121, April, 2024)
“Megna, Phillips, and White’s volume illuminates Shakespeare’s play from a number of angles, offering a wealth of penetrating insights and rewarding both systematic and more intermittent readers.” (Erin Sullivan, Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 73 (2), 2020)
Report
"This volume bears potent testimony, not only to the dense complexity of Hamlet's emotional dynamics, but also to the enduring fascination that audiences, adaptors, and academics have with what may well be Shakespeare's moodiest play. Its chapters explore emotion in Hamlet, as well as the myriad emotions surrounding Hamlet's debts to the medieval past, its relationship to the cultural milieu in which it was produced, its celebrated performance history, and its profound impact beyond the early modern era." (Scriptable, rtreview.org, Issue 121, April, 2024)
"Megna, Phillips, and White's volume illuminates Shakespeare's play from a number of angles, offering a wealth of penetrating insights and rewarding both systematic and more intermittent readers." (Erin Sullivan, Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 73 (2), 2020)
