William Shakespeare's Hamlet (bloom's Modern Critical Interpretations)

Bloom’s Modern Critical Interpretations The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn The Age of Innocence Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland All Quiet on the Western Front Animal Farm The Ballad of the Sad Café Beloved Beowulf Black Boy The Bluest Eye The Canterbury Tales Cat on a Hot Tin Roof Catch-22 The Catcher in the Rye The Chronicles of Narnia The Color Purple Crime and Punishment The Crucible Darkness at Noon Death of a Salesman The Death of Artemio Cruz Don Quixote Emerson’s Essays Emma Fahrenheit 451 A Farewell to Arms Frankenstein The Glass Menagerie The Grapes of Wrath Great Expectations The Great Gatsby Gulliver’s Travels Hamlet The Handmaid’s Tale Heart of Darkness The House on Mango Street I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings The Iliad Invisible Man Jane Eyre The Joy Luck Club Julius Caesar The Jungle Long Day’s Journey into Night Lord of the Flies The Lord of the Rings Love in the Time of Cholera The Man Without Qualities The Metamorphosis Miss Lonelyhearts Moby-Dick My Ántonia Native Son Night 1984 The Odyssey Oedipus Rex The Old Man and the Sea On the Road One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest One Hundred Years of Solitude Persuasion Portnoy’s Complaint Pride and Prejudice Ragtime The Red Badge of Courage Romeo and Juliet The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám The Scarlet Letter A Separate Peace Silas Marner Slaughterhouse-Five Song of Solomon The Sound and the Fury The Stranger A Streetcar Named Desire Sula The Tale of Genji A Tale of Two Cities “The Tell-Tale Heart” and Other Stories Their Eyes Were Watching God Things Fall Apart To Kill a Mockingbird Ulysses Waiting for Godot The Waste Land Wuthering Heights Young Goodman Brown Bloom’s Modern Critical Interpretations William Shakespeare’s Hamlet New Edition Edited and with an introduction by Harold Bloom Sterling Professor of the Humanities Yale University Bloom’s Modern Critical Interpretations: William Shakespeare’s Hamlet—New Edition Copyright © 2009 by Infobase Publishing Introduction © 2009 by Harold Bloom All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any informa­tion storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher. For more information contact: Bloom’s Literary Criticism An imprint of Infobase Publishing 132 West 31st Street New York NY 10001 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data William Shakespeare’s Hamlet / edited and with an introduction by Harold Bloom. —New ed.    p. cm.—(Bloom’s modern critical interpretations) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-60413-632-6 (acid-free paper) 1. Shakespeare, William, 1564–1616. Hamlet. 2. Hamlet (Legendary character) I. Bloom, Harold. II. Title: Hamlet. PR2807.W456 2009 822.3’3—dc22 2009018234 Bloom’s Literary Criticism books are available at special discounts when purchased in bulk quantities for businesses, associations, institutions, or sales promotions. Please call our Special Sales Department in New York at (212) 967-8800 or (800) 322-8755. You can find Bloom’s Literary Criticism on the World Wide Web at http://www.chelseahouse.com. Cover design by Alicia Post Printed in the United States of America MP BCL 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 This book is printed on acid-free paper. All links and Web addresses were checked and verified to be correct at the time of publication. Because of the dynamic nature of the Web, some addresses and links may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. Contents Editor’s Note vii Introduction 1 Harold Bloom Hamlet’s Northern Lineage: Masculinity, Climate, and the Mechanician in Early Modern Britain Daryl W. Palmer Eating Air, Feeling Smells: Hamlet ’s Theory of Performance Carolyn Sale 33 Staging N