Approaches to Teaching Shakespeare’s Hamlet
- Editor: Bernice W. Kliman
- Pages: 306 pp.
- Published: 2002
- ISBN: 9780873527682 (Paperback)
“[A]n admirably succinct, well organized . . . collection of insights, anecdotes, and methodological examples for teaching Shakespeare’s most popular tragedy. Its accessibility and global scope make it a useful resource for those who teach Shakespeare from middle school to graduate school.”
—Shakespeare Quarterly
For centuries Hamlet has been a source of inspiration for readers and audiences. The play’s characters fascinated Romantic critics from Goethe to Coleridge, its themes interested psychoanalytic theorists from Freud to Lacan, and its ideas have engaged recent scholars of all schools. Teachers regard Shakespeare’s great tragedy as rewarding, challenging, and ideal for classroom instruction and performance.
This volume, like others in the MLA’s Approaches to Teaching World Literature series, is divided into two parts. The first part, “Materials,” culls from thousands of works on Hamlet those editions, anthologies, reference materials, films, and Web sites that will be of greatest help to teachers. The second part, “Approaches,” presents a wide array of techniques for presenting the play to students—textual approaches, performance strategies, comparative and postmodern methodologies. Unique to this Approaches volume are twenty short takes—exercises, syllabus additions, and tips for teaching Hamlet.
“[These] essays leave the reader with a sense that the strategies our colleagues are applying are consistently stimulating. Indeed, this is a volume that is teeming with ideas, a volume that is bound to be well received by the many of us who are looking for new ways into the provocative world of Hamlet.”
—June Schlueter, author of Dramatic Closure and editor of Two Gentlemen of Verona: Critical Essays
