Hamlet Annotated Bibliography Cook, Patrick J. Cinematic

Hamlet Annotated Bibliography

Cook, Patrick J. Cinematic Hamlet: the Films of Olivier, Zeffirelli, Branagh, and Almereyda.

Athens, Ohio: Ohio UP. 2011. Print. This book focuses on the many versions of Hamlet that have been made for the silver screen. The play by William Shakespeare is one of the most frequently filmed works and each version of the story has a unique perspective. Director, screenwriter, and of course actor each influence the overall position of the film. Each chooses which elements of the story to emphasize and which to underplay. Even films that use the complete text of Shakespeare's work still alter the original by the act of interpretation. By examining each version, focusing on the three four major ones, the author helps explain what was important to the artists and by extension to the audience who would have seen the film.

In the context of a paper, each film would be watched and particular attention paid to the actor's depiction of Hamlet and his psychological issues. A major question of the play is whether or not Hamlet has truly gone insane or if it is all an act. Shakespeare himself never makes this clear. The film's artistic contributors make the determination in their given media. Some, like the Zeffirelli film have Hamlet's pretense of insanity more strong, indicating that he is not crazy. Others, like Branaugh's version make the likelihood of insanity far greater.

Eliot, T.S. "Hamlet and His Problems." The Sacred Wood. 1921. Print. Author T.S. Eliot wrote a rather fascinating critique of Hamlet in 1921. He states that the play is not the masterpiece that many have hailed it as. Several key inconsistencies are relayed in the article but the one that seems to give Eliot the most trouble is in Hamlet's sanity or lack of sanity. He tells the audience that he will pretend to go crazy in order to find the evidence he needs of his uncle's guilt in the death of his father. However, his actions later on in the play, such as stabbing the curtain where Polonius is hiding in the misguided belief that it is his uncle, do not appear to be the actions of a rational being. The audience must then determine if he is still pretending to be crazy or if he has descended into true madness.

It is not easy to find articles which in any way disagree with the quality of Hamlet. To find one from an author who is distinguished in his own right is doubly rare. It is hard to disagree with Eliot's assessment. There is definitely something to Hamlet's state of mind that is not altogether sane. Shakespeare tells us that Hamlet is only pretending to be crazy, but his actions belie this. At what point does he stop pretending to be crazy and begin to descend into true madness, if that is indeed what is going on?

Greenblatt, Stephen. "The Death of Hamnet and the Making of Hamlet." The New York Review

of Books. 2004. Print. Greenblatt states that the story of Hamlet was not one originally created by Shakespeare. Like many of his plays, Hamlet was based on the works of other writers. However, in none of the earlier versions of the play does the ghost of Hamlet's father appear. Greenblatt argues that in the play, death is the central theme and this is a reflection on Shakespeare's feelings following the death of his only son. Throughout the piece, Hamlet acts out of mourning. Similarly when Ophelia dies, her brother's rash actions are caused by his mourning of his sister. Funerals and ceremonies that honor the dead are more to allow the living to grieve than to celebrate the departed, Greenblatt says.

His argument is that Shakespeare dwells in death in Hamlet because of his feelings of grief over the death of his son. People in the play, like Gertrude, tell Hamlet to stop mourning the dead. There is a suitable amount of time to grieve. Any more than that and the person is no longer honoring the dead but dwelling in their own pain. Greenblatt makes a very interesting argument, but it is flawed in that a person can never know what Shakespeare's mental state was when writing the play or whether or not he felt the same pain as Hamlet or Laertes over the death of a loved one.

Pollin, Burton R. "Hamlet, A Successful Suicide." Shakespeare Studies I. 1965. 240-60. Print.

Burton Pollin asserts that Hamlet's ultimate ambition in the play of his name was to commit suicide. Following the death of his father, nothing that Hamlet does has any rational explanation save for if he were trying to get himself killed. Often in Elizabethan dramas and tragedies, the main character winds up dead. Pollin argues that Hamlet's story is one wherein he has metacognition, and is responding to the audience's expectations of events in a tragedy of the day.

Pollin states that all of Hamlet's actions are geared towards his ultimate goal which was suicide. Hamlet has been severely depressed since the death of his father and more and more obsessed with the notion of suicide. However, suicide is a mortal sin and indulging would send him to Hell. If he were to die in the seeking of revenge for a slain father, there is a chance he could escape damnation. The ghost therefore becomes the stimuli, the reason for his actions and thus the embodiment of his own desire to die.

Showalter, Elaine. "Representing Ophelia: Women, Madness, and the Responsibilities of Feminist Criticism." 1994.Print. In this article, Elaine Showalter takes up the question of Ophelia in Shakespeare's Hamlet. The woman dies because she has lost her mind. She has lost her mind because of the direct actions of Hamlet who assures her that he never loved her. Ophelia is the embodiment of femininity in the piece, she argues. She is both the only young female presence and the metaphorical feminine or emotional side of the young male characters. When she is dead, neither Laertes nor Hamlet have any emotions left within them but anger and the thirst for revenge.