Hamlet in His Modern Guises /
Welsh, Alexander
Hamlet in His Modern Guises / Alexander Welsh. - 1 online resource
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface and Acknowledgments -- Chapter One. Medieval Hamlet Gains a Family -- Chapter Two. Hamlet's Mourning and Revenge Tragedy -- Chapter Three. History, as between Goethe's Hamlet and Scott's -- Chapter Four. Hamlet's Expectations, Pip's Great Guilt -- Chapter Five. Hamlet Decides to Be a Modernist -- Index
restricted access http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec
Focusing on Shakespeare's Hamlet as foremost a study of grief, Alexander Welsh offers a powerful analysis of its protagonist as the archetype of the modern hero. For over two centuries writers and critics have viewed Hamlet's persona as a fascinating blend of self-consciousness, guilt, and wit. Yet in order to understand more deeply the modernity of this Shakespearean hero, Welsh first situates Hamlet within the context of family and mourning as it was presented in other revenge tragedies of Shakespeare's time. Revenge, he maintains, appears as a function of mourning rather than an end in itself. Welsh also reminds us that the mourning of a son for his father may not always be sincere. This book relates the problem of dubious mourning to Hamlet's ascendancy as an icon of Western culture, which began late in the eighteenth century, a time when the thinking of past generations--or fathers--represented to many an obstacle to human progress. Welsh reveals how Hamlet inspired some of the greatest practitioners of modernity's quintessential literary form, the novel. Goethe's Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, Scott's Redgauntlet, Dickens's Great Expectations, Melville's Pierre, and Joyce's Ulysses all enhance our understanding of the play while illustrating a trend in which Hamlet ultimately becomes a model of intense consciousness. Arguing that modern consciousness mourns for the past, even as it pretends to be free of it, Welsh offers a compelling explanation of why Hamlet remains marvelously attractive to this day.
Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
In English.
9780691050935 9781400824120
10.1515/9781400824120 doi
Fiction--History and criticism.--19th century
Fiction--History and criticism.--20th century
Heroes in literature.
Modernism (Literature)
Modernism (Literature).
LITERARY CRITICISM / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh.
PR2807 / .W39 2001eb
809/.93351
Hamlet in His Modern Guises / Alexander Welsh. - 1 online resource
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface and Acknowledgments -- Chapter One. Medieval Hamlet Gains a Family -- Chapter Two. Hamlet's Mourning and Revenge Tragedy -- Chapter Three. History, as between Goethe's Hamlet and Scott's -- Chapter Four. Hamlet's Expectations, Pip's Great Guilt -- Chapter Five. Hamlet Decides to Be a Modernist -- Index
restricted access http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec
Focusing on Shakespeare's Hamlet as foremost a study of grief, Alexander Welsh offers a powerful analysis of its protagonist as the archetype of the modern hero. For over two centuries writers and critics have viewed Hamlet's persona as a fascinating blend of self-consciousness, guilt, and wit. Yet in order to understand more deeply the modernity of this Shakespearean hero, Welsh first situates Hamlet within the context of family and mourning as it was presented in other revenge tragedies of Shakespeare's time. Revenge, he maintains, appears as a function of mourning rather than an end in itself. Welsh also reminds us that the mourning of a son for his father may not always be sincere. This book relates the problem of dubious mourning to Hamlet's ascendancy as an icon of Western culture, which began late in the eighteenth century, a time when the thinking of past generations--or fathers--represented to many an obstacle to human progress. Welsh reveals how Hamlet inspired some of the greatest practitioners of modernity's quintessential literary form, the novel. Goethe's Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, Scott's Redgauntlet, Dickens's Great Expectations, Melville's Pierre, and Joyce's Ulysses all enhance our understanding of the play while illustrating a trend in which Hamlet ultimately becomes a model of intense consciousness. Arguing that modern consciousness mourns for the past, even as it pretends to be free of it, Welsh offers a compelling explanation of why Hamlet remains marvelously attractive to this day.
Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
In English.
9780691050935 9781400824120
10.1515/9781400824120 doi
Fiction--History and criticism.--19th century
Fiction--History and criticism.--20th century
Heroes in literature.
Modernism (Literature)
Modernism (Literature).
LITERARY CRITICISM / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh.
PR2807 / .W39 2001eb
809/.93351