Hamlet

Hardin Aasand is Professor of English and Chair of the Department of English and Linguistics at Indiana-Purdue University Fort Wayne, USA.

general editor’s preface
preface
introduction

1. thomas davies, on Steevens’s and Malone’s editions and various 18th century theatrical performances, 1784
2. william richardson, a philosophical analysis of Hamlet’s character, 1784
3. walter whiter, on Hamlet’s melancholic disposition, 1794
4. johann wolfgang von goethe, Hamlet’s character as analogue for Wilheim Meister’s own disenchantment, 1797

5 lord john chedworth, Glosses and personal annotation of early variorum editions (Johnson, Steevens, Malone), 1805

6 e.h. seymour, on collations of various passages from quartos as a means of making the ‘brightness of Shakespeare’s genius still more conspicuous’, 1805

7 francis douce, on the historical, cultural analogues and ‘anachronisms’ of the play, 1807

8 henry james pye, various commentary notes, 1807

9 john monck mason, various commentary on variorum editions, 1807

10 august wilhelm von schlegel, on Hamlet’s unheroic predisposition, 1808

11 samuel taylor coleridge, on Hamlet’s “unpractical being” and similarity with Wilhelm Meister, 1810

12 charles lamb, on the difficulty of representing theatrically Hamlet’s ‘solitary musings’, 1811

13 samuel taylor coleridge, on Hamlet’s “irresoluteness” of his revenge in Act 3, 1812

14 samuel taylor coleridge, Hamlet’s use of ‘trivial objects and familiar circumstances’, 1813

15 william hazlitt, on Edmund Kean’s rehearsal of Hamlet’s ‘undulating lines’, 1814

16 andrew becket, on the importance of collation and conjecture in determining Shakespeare’s meaning, 1815

17 william hazlitt, on the complexity of Hamlet’s characters, with passing reference to Kemble and Kean’s flawed performances, 1817

18 samuel taylor coleridge, and Hamlet’s “flying” from reality, 1818

19 t[homas] c[ampbell] [john wilson] ‘Letters on Shakspeare – No. 1. – Hamlet.’, 1818

20 samuel taylor coleridge, Hamlet and the development of his ‘philosophical criticism’, 1819

21 zachary jackson, presenting 700 passages needing penetration and restoration, 1819

22 anon. ‘Observations on Mr. Campbell’s Essay on English Poetry’, 1819

23 samuel taylor coleridge, and the ‘easy language of common life’ in Hamlet, 1819

24 samuel taylor coleridge, on Hamlet Act 1, 1819

25 samuel taylor coleridge, miscellaneous manuscript notes, 1819

26 augustine skottowe, various observations on scenes, 1824

27 samuel weller singer, and the dating of Hamlet, 1826

28 hartley coleridge, on the complexity of reading Hamlet’s character, 1828

29 george farren, an appendix on mania and melancholy in Hamlet and Ophelia, 1829

30 thomas caldecott, a defense of Hamlet’s behavior as a means of enacting revenge, 1832

31 james boaden, a memoir of Garrick’s Hamlet, 1832

32 anna jameson, Ophelia, ‘the snowflake dissolved in air’, 1832

33 nathan drake, Hamlet’s reticence to revenge, 1838

34 thomas carlyle, Shakespeare: Priest of Mankind, 1840

35 alexander dyce, a critique of Collier’s 1841 and Knight’s 1842 editions, 1844

36 joseph hunter, Shakespearean variants, 1845
37 henry n. hudson, the ‘universality’ of Hamlet’s character, 1848

38 edward strachey, Hamlet as a ‘man’ and the ‘triumph’ of his revenge, 1848

39 samuel weller singer, “the meaning of ‘Drink Up Eisell’ in Hamlet.” 1850

40 nicolaus delius, selected commentary notes, 1854

41 rev. arthur ramsay, and the ‘mystery of humanity’, 1856
42 henry hope reed, on Hamlet’s ‘meditative mind’, 1856

43 william maginn, on Polonius as ‘ceremonious courtier’, 1856

44 william rushton, on Shakespeare’s legal acumen, 1859

45 ivan turgenev,on the ‘turbulent sea’ and the ‘deep flowing tranquility’, 1860

46 charles cowden clarke and the ‘shrouding’ of Hamlet’s revenge, 1863

47 georg gottfried gervinus, the ‘conscientious’ Hamlet, 1863

48 b[rinsley] nicholson, Shakespeare and ‘sour and stale beer’, 1864

49 james henry hackett, reviews of contemporary ‘Hamlets’, 1864

50 victor hugo , Hamlet and “hesitation”, 1864

51 albert cohn, the German ‘Hamlet’, 1865

52 samuel bailey, on the empirical Shakespeare, 1866

53 john bucknill, ‘Ophelia, so simple, so beautiful, so pitiful’, 1867

54 thomas keightley, on individual passages, 1867

55 benno tschischwitz, on Bruno’s atomistic philosophy and Hamlet, 1867

56 benno tschischwitz, on Shakespeare’s philosophy and Giordano Bruno’s influence, 1869

57 p[eter] a[ugustin] daniel, notes and conjectures, 1870

58 george miles, A Review of ‘’Hamlet’. 1870

59 r[obert] g[ordon] latham, the ‘hopelessness’ of Hamlet’s pre-cursors, 1872

60 mary cowden clarke, on Ophelia’s youth, 1873

61 karl elze, the French Hamlet, 1874

62 edward dowden, and mystery, the ‘baffling, vital obscurity of the play’, 1875

63 [francis] frank a[lbert] marshall, ‘the early life’ of Hamlet, 1875

64 hermann ulrici, Hamlet’s ‘double contradiction’, 1876

65 john bulloch, and the Globe edition emendations, 1878

66 j. o. halliwell-phillipps , on Hamlet’s ‘singular determination’, 1879

67 charles cowden clarke and mary cowden clarke, ‘unlocking the treasures of his style’, 1879

Notes
Select Bibliography
Index