The Masks of HamletUniversity of Delaware Press, 1992 - 971 pages In this work, Rosenberg insists again and again that only the individual reader or actor can determine Shakespeare's design of Hamlet's character -- and of the play. To interpret Hamlet's words and actions at the many crises, the reader needs to double in the role of actor, imagining the character from the inside and observing from the outside. Winner of the Theatre Library Association Award for 1993. |
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Page ii
... never confesses ? What ago- nies hide behind Claudius ' smile ? Does Ophelia truly love Hamlet ? Does she choose madness ? What are Polonius ' masked motives , as in using his daughter for bait for Hamlet ? With how much effort must ...
... never confesses ? What ago- nies hide behind Claudius ' smile ? Does Ophelia truly love Hamlet ? Does she choose madness ? What are Polonius ' masked motives , as in using his daughter for bait for Hamlet ? With how much effort must ...
Page xv
... never con- sciously know in each moment , what happens next . I have tried in my books to re- experience a Shakespeare drama by the usual effort of the imagination ; but also , since my Lear study , by presenting it to naive spectators ...
... never con- sciously know in each moment , what happens next . I have tried in my books to re- experience a Shakespeare drama by the usual effort of the imagination ; but also , since my Lear study , by presenting it to naive spectators ...
Page xvi
... never interact ) and just talk about the play . Surely at such a gathering exciting new insights might emerge ? Some that might en- rich a study of the play such as this one ? Well - the fantasy came true in the fall of 1990. I was ...
... never interact ) and just talk about the play . Surely at such a gathering exciting new insights might emerge ? Some that might en- rich a study of the play such as this one ? Well - the fantasy came true in the fall of 1990. I was ...
Page 18
... never . Their stricken fear - Craig wanted them to feel physically faint , almost as if they had had a stroke — compels our - audience fear . Not only the frightful image from the grave itself , but its chilling movements against its ...
... never . Their stricken fear - Craig wanted them to feel physically faint , almost as if they had had a stroke — compels our - audience fear . Not only the frightful image from the grave itself , but its chilling movements against its ...
Page 20
... never seen a theatre one like it . The portentous figure stalks ( the word is twice used ) probably through the back stage area , distanced there to preserve its mystery , while the horri- fied , breathless watchers tell each other the ...
... never seen a theatre one like it . The portentous figure stalks ( the word is twice used ) probably through the back stage area , distanced there to preserve its mystery , while the horri- fied , breathless watchers tell each other the ...
Contents
Act III Scene i Part 2 | 463 |
Act III Scene i Part 3 | 473 |
Act III Scene i Part 4 | 484 |
Act III Scene i Part 5 | 497 |
Act III Scene i Part 6 | 508 |
Act III Scene ii Part 1 | 548 |
Act III Scene ii Part 2 | 553 |
Act III Scene ii Part 3 | 560 |
47 | |
70 | |
82 | |
Hamlet Part 1 | 92 |
Hamlet Part 2 | 118 |
Hamlet Part 3 | 155 |
Hamlet Part 4 | 167 |
Act I Scene ii Part 3 | 186 |
Act I Scene ii Part 4 | 204 |
Act I Scene ii Part 5 | 221 |
Ophelia | 236 |
Laertes | 253 |
Polonius | 257 |
Act I Scene iii | 265 |
Act I Scene iv | 281 |
Act I Scene v Part 1 | 310 |
Act I Scene v Part 2 | 328 |
Act I Scene v Part 3 | 340 |
Act II Scene i | 357 |
Act II Scene ii Part 1 | 368 |
Act II Scene ii Part 2 | 375 |
Act II Scene ii Part 3 | 386 |
Act II Scene ii Part 4 | 403 |
Act II Scene ii Part 5 | 415 |
Act II Scene ii Part 6 | 438 |
Act III Scene i Part 1 | 455 |
Act III Scene ii Part 4 | 572 |
Act III Scene ii Part 5 | 577 |
Act III Scene ii Part 6 | 594 |
Act III Scene iii | 622 |
Act III Scene iv Part 1 | 641 |
Act III Scene iv Part 2 | 673 |
Act III Scene iv Part 3 | 686 |
Act IV Scene i | 722 |
Act IV Scene ii | 729 |
Act IV Scene iii | 732 |
Act IV Scene iv | 745 |
Act IV Scene v Part 1 | 757 |
Act IV Scene v Part 2 | 776 |
Act IV Scene v Part 3 | 789 |
Act IV Scene v Part 4 | 797 |
Act IV Scene vi | 810 |
Act IV Scene vii | 812 |
Act V Scene i Part 1 | 825 |
Act V Scene i Part 2 | 845 |
Act V Scene ii Part 1 | 859 |
Act V Scene ii Part 2 | 875 |
Act V Scene ii Part 3 | 905 |
Act V Scene ii Part 4 | 911 |
Bibliography | 927 |
Index | 955 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
action actor actor-reader Alan Howard antic arms arras asks audience begins Booth Burton character Charles Kean Claudius court courtiers dangerous death Denmark Dover Wilson emotional eyes face father fear Fechter feel felt fierce Fortinbras Frances Barber G. B. Shaw Gertrude Gertrude's gesture Ghost Gielgud grief Hamlet plays hand head Horatio impulse Irving Jacobi Kachalov Kainz Kean Kemble kill kind King King's kiss Laertes later laugh lonius look Marcellus mask McKellen's mind mother Mousetrap moved murder mystery observed Olivier Ophelia passion pause perhaps physical play Player Polonius polyphony power Hamlet Prince Queen revenge role Rosencrantz and Guildenstern scene seems seen sense sexual Shakespeare shock soliloquy sometimes soul sound speak speech spies spoke stage subtext suddenly suggests sweet Hamlet sword tears tenderness theatre thought tone touch tried trying turned usually violence voice whisper Wittenberg words young
Popular passages
Page 178 - I am myself indifferent honest ; but yet I could accuse me of such things, that it were better my mother had not borne me ; I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious ; with more offences at my beck, than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in.
Page 309 - What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord, Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff That beetles o'er his base into the sea, And there assume some other horrible form, Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason And draw you into madness...
Page 33 - And then it started, like a guilty thing Upon a fearful summons. I have heard The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn, Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat Awake the god of day; and at his warning. Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air, The extravagant and erring spirit hies To his confine; and of the truth herein This present object made probation.
Page 79 - Such an act, That blurs the grace and blush of modesty; Calls virtue, hypocrite; takes off the rose From the fair forehead of an innocent love, And sets a blister there; makes marriage vows As false as dicers...
Page 473 - To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps Out of my weakness and my melancholy, As he is very potent with such spirits, Abuses me to damn me. I'll have grounds More relative than this: the play's the thing Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.
Page 12 - Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled That they are not a pipe for fortune's finger To sound what stop she please. Give me that man That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart, As I do thee.
Page 168 - O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown! The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword; The expectancy and rose of the fair state, The glass of fashion and the mould of form, The observed of all observers, quite, quite down!
Page 284 - That for some vicious mole of nature in them, As, in their birth, wherein they are not guilty, Since nature cannot choose his origin, By the o'ergrowth of some complexion, Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason, Or by some habit that too much o'er-leavens The form of plausive manners ; that these men, Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect, Being nature's livery, or fortune's star, Their virtues else, be they as pure as grace, As infinite as man may undergo, Shall in the general censure...