Description
The Signet Classics edition of William Shakespeare's incomparable tragic play.
"To be, or not to be: that is the question"
There is arguably no work of fiction quoted as often as William Shakespeare's Hamlet. This haunting tragedy of a troubled Danish prince devoted to avenging his father's death has captivated audiences for centuries.
This title in the Signet Classics Shakespeare series includes:
• An overview of Shakespeare's life, world, and theater
• A special introduction to the play by the editor, Sylvan Barnet
• A note on the sources from which Shakespeare derived Hamlet
• Dramatic criticism from Samuel Taylor Coleridge, A.C. Bradley, Maynard Mack, and others
• A comprehensive stage and screen history of notable actors, directors, and productions of Hamlet
• Text, notes, and commentaries printed in the clearest, most readable format
• Recommended readings
About the Author
William Shakespeare was an English playwright, poet, and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Shakespeare remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted.Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he marriedAnne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner ("sharer") of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men after the ascension of KingJames VI and Iof Scotland to the English throne. At age 49 (around 1613), he appears to have retired to Stratford, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive; this has stimulated considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, his sexuality, his religious beliefs, and even certain fringe theories as to whether the works attributed to him were written by others.Shakespeare produced most of his known works between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were primarily comedies and histories and are regarded as some of the best works produced in these genres. He then wrote mainly tragedies until 1608, among them Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth, all considered to be among the finest works in the English language. In the last phase of his life, he wrote tragicomedies (also known as romances) and collaborated with other playwrights.Many of Shakespeare's plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime. However, in 1623,John HemingeandHenry Condell, two fellow actors and friends of Shakespeare's, published a more definitive text known as the First Folio, a posthumous collected edition of Shakespeare's dramatic works that includes 36 of his plays. Its Preface was a prescient poem byBen Jonson, a former rival of Shakespeare, that hailed Shakespeare with the now famous epithet: "not of an age, but for all time".
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