The Tragedy of Hamlet

The Tragedy of Hamlet by William Shakespeare

The Boynton/Cook editions of four of Shakespeare's most popular plays have been reissued with attractive new cover designs and printed on more opaque, easy-to-read paper. This series is specifically designed for high school classes.

• Students will be able to see each play as a whole. In their introduction to each of the plays, editors Mack and Boynton suggest ways of approaching the text that allow the reader a broad range of imaginative involvement. Their observations are intended to help students read and experience the play, not to discourage them with critical jargon or peripheral historical information.
• Students will be reading the best text both in terms of visual excellence and quality of scholarship. They'll immediately appreciate the large page format and highly readable typography. Each volume is consistent with the most authoritative early edition of each play. The glosses are full and clear but don't belabor the obvious or clutter the text.
• Background information includes the editors' detailed analysis of the Elizabethan theatre and its relation to Shakespeare's dramaturgy, C. W. Hodges's drawing re-creating the original Globe Playhouse, a brief account of Shakespeare's life and a chronological listing of his works, and a bibliography, lists of videotapes (VHS), records, and tapes of the complete plays.
• Students will experience added critical and imaginative dimensions. An essay following each play suggests ways of approaching it as a live dramatic experience in the theatre of the mind. The concern is not how the play might be produced in a theatre, but rather how parts of it may be realized in the imagination through close attention to what the language is saying and suggesting.
• Students can get a deeper understanding of each scene through helpful, detailed questions included at the back of each volume. These questions encourage group discussion or written response. Also included are topics for longer papers.

At the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, Peter Holland is the McMeel Family Professor of Shakespeare Studies. He was President of the Shakespeare Association of America (2007-8) and Director of the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon (1997-2002).