In these Shakespearean essays originally published together in 1979, the distinguished literary critic L. C. Knights offers the fruits of his long-term thinking about individual plays (notably, Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Lear) and explores the ways in which a deep and imaginative understanding of Shakespeare's work can relate to and enrich other areas of knowledge - politics, history, social and emotional relationships, the nature of theatrical experience ... Certain critical assumptions are of course implicit here: that great works of art have a continuing life which is renewed through perception; that the vitality generated by such works is for all men and that the critic's function is to encourage all readers to see as much as they can for themselves, not to dogmatize or try to impose a particular reading. L. C. Knights admirably fulfils this function in these essays most of which have been gathered from the three volumes entitled Explorations, Further Explorations and Explorations 3.

"A collection of thematically related essays on a variety of works by Shakespeare"--P. 11.

Critical essays about William Shakespeare's "Hamlet".

"What is a person? What company do people keep with animals, plants, and things? What are their rights? To whom are they obligated? Such questions - bearing fundamentally on the shared meaning of politics and life - animate Shakespearean drama, yet their urgency has been obscured by historicist approaches to literature.

These essays offer fresh ideas about Shakespeare. Everett argues that patterns in the major tragedies are drawn from the most common human experiences, and that Shakespeare used his great public settings to suggest myths of the personal life. The first essay "Growing," proposes a new reading that recovers an older forgotten view of the place of the young within the social order. Other essays exemplify a wide range of approaches to Shakespeare's tragic texts, including a reading of Romeo and Juliet that presents the Nurse as a key to Shakepeare's tragic conception, and an essay on the "inaction" of Troilus and Cressida that brings out the extraordinary originality of this unclassifiable play. In addition, the book provides ancillary studies of Hamlet and Othello, together with new approaches to the texts which show how these plays manifest their meanings, even in the smallest details of word and phrase.

Argues that the Essais of Montaigne were a crucial factor in the composition of later Shakespearean dramaA new way of accounting for the different sorts of plays that Shakespeare wrote later in his careerA detailed history of the literary-critical interest in the Montaigne-Shakespeare connection, from the eighteenth century to the present dayCase studies that, through sustained close-readings of Montaigne's essays and Shakespeare's plays, shows the shared concerns of the authorsA new approach that differs from the more typical method of looking merely for verbal echoes, resulting in a deeper, richer sense of the way that Shakespeare's reading of Montaigne shaped his writingIn this revisionist study, Peter G. Platt provides a detailed history of the literary-critical interest in the Montaigne-Shakespeare connection from the eighteenth century to the present day. Through sustained close-readings of Montaigne's essays and Shakespeare's plays, Platt explores both authors' approaches to self, knowledge and form that stress fractures, interruptions and alternatives. While the change in monarchy, the revived interest in judicial rhetoric and the alterations in Shakespeare's acting company helped shape plays such as Measure for Measure, King Lear and The Tempest, this book contends that Shakespeare's reading of Montaigne is an under-recognised driving force in these later plays.

42 easy-to-read, ready-to-inspire sample essays on Shakespeare''s Hamlet. Inside you will find three 1,500-word essays on each of the following 14 characters, relationships and themes: #1: The Character of Hamlet Born a prince, parented by a jester, haunted by a ghost, destined to kill a king rather than become one, and remembered as the title character of a play he did not want to be in. #2: The Character of Claudius His "ambition" (3.3) for Denmark''s throne leads him to commit one murder only to find that he must plot a second to cover up the first. When this plan fails, his next scheme leads to his own death and that of the woman he loved. #3: The Character of Gertrude "Have you eyes?" (3.4), Prince Hamlet demands of his mother. Gertrude''s "o''erhasty marriage" (2.2) dooms her life and the lives of everyone around her when her wished-for, happily-ever-after fairytale ends in a bloodbath. #4: The Character of Ophelia Ophelia''s sanity is overwhelmed by Elsinore''s maddening world of deception and betrayal. Her "self-slaughter" (1.2) is her revenge against everyone who dismissed, silenced and humiliated her. #5: Relationship of Hamlet and the Ghost By surrendering Denmark to his rival''s son, Hamlet grants to the angry Ghost of his "dear father murdered" (2.2) the forgiveness his suffering soul needed more than the revenge he demanded. #6: Relationship of Hamlet and Claudius Claudius is haunted by the murder he has committed ("O heavy burden!", 3.1). Hamlet by the one he hasn''t yet ("Am I a coward?", 2.2). In the end, the prince by two means kills the "arrant knave" (1.5) whose poison claimed the lives of both his parents and who had twice plotted to murder him. #7: Relationship of Hamlet and Gertrude A haunted-by-the-past ("Must I remember?", 1.2) Hamlet seeks the truth about his father''s death. A live-in-the-moment ("All that is I see", 3.4) Gertrude seeks to protect her second husband and throne. #8: Relationship of Hamlet and Ophelia Their relationship begins in uncertainty, descends into mutual deceit and rejection, and ends with their double surrender to death: she, to the "weeping brook" (4.7); he, to Claudius'' "he shall not choose but fall" (4.7) rigged fencing duel. #9: Relationship of Hamlet and Horatio "Those friends thou hast ... Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel" (1.3). Horatio is Hamlet''s trusted confidant in life and vows to remain the keeper of his memory after the prince''s death. #10: Relationship of Claudius and Gertrude A marriage of practical interest. Claudius wanted something (the kingship) he did not have; Gertrude had something (the status of queen) she wanted to hold onto. #11: The Themes of Hamlet A king murdered, an inheritance stolen, a family divided: Elsinore''s older generation destroys its younger when two brothers -- one living, one undead -- battle in a "cursed spite" (1.5) over a crown and queen. #12: The Theme of Revenge Two young men journey from revenge, through obsession and anger, to forgiveness. And the revenge sought in act one by the Ghost on his brother Claudius becomes in act five the revenge of old King Fortinbras on old King Hamlet. #13: The Theme Deception and Appearance versus Reality ''Seems'' and ''is'' are as tragically far apart as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are comically similar in a play-long triple pun on the verb ''to act'': to take action, to behave deceitfully, and to perform in theater. #14: The Theme of Madness Is Hamlet ever really insane? If not, why is he pretending to be? Is the prince''s behavior the cause of Ophelia''s traumatic breakdown? Book website: www.essaykit.com.