Hamlet and the Vision of Darkness

Rhodri Lewis is professor of English literature and a fellow of St. Hugh's College at the University of Oxford. He is the author of Language, Mind and Nature: Artificial Languages in England from Bacon to Locke and William Petty on the Order of Nature.

List of Illustrations xi

Preface and Acknowledgements xiii

Note on the Text xvii

Introduction Hamlet within Hamlet 1

1 Hamlet, Humanism, and Performing the Self 13

Humanism, Self-Knowledge, and Public Living 18

Moral Dislocation and the Unsettled Self 27

2 Hamlet, Hunting, and the Nature of Things 43

Establishing the Hunt 47

Pursuit 62

Commerce of Cunning 80

Transforming Saxo Grammaticus 92

Faking It: Huntsmen, Hypocrites, and Seeming Virtue 98

3 Hamlet as Historian 112

Rights of Memory and the History of the Danes 114

The Dozy Arithmetic of Memory 120

Memory, Reason, and the Eyes of the Mind 129

Remember Me 147

Memory, Recollection, and the ars memoriae 154

Metaphor and Misrepresentation 162

A Slave to What Memory? 169

4 Hamlet as Poet 174

A Passionate Speech 178

The Mirror Up to Nature 195

Foul Imaginations 205

Play-within-a-Play 214

Very Like a Poet 219

5 Hamlet as Philosopher 238

The Good, the Bad, and the Boethian 242

More Things in Heaven and Earth 253

Being, Nothingness, and Inconsequentiality 266

Dull Revenge 279

Rough-Hewn Providence 284

Conclusion Shakespearean Tragedy and the Death of Humanism 304

Appendix: How Old Is Hamlet? 315

Bibliography 325

Index 355