The Hamlet Doctrine: Knowing Too Much, Doing Nothing

Webster, Jamieson

ISBN 10: 1781682569 / ISBN 13: 9781781682562

Published by Verso Books, 2013

About this Item

Most items will be dispatched the same or the next working day. A copy that has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Seller Inventory # rev2332362692

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Hamlet Doctrine: Knowing Too Much, Doing Nothing
• Publisher: Verso Books
• Publication Date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1781682569
• ISBN 13: 9781781682562
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Very Good
• Weight: 460 grams

About this title

Synopsis

Arguably, no literary work is more familiar to us than Shakespeare's most famous tragedy. Everyone can quote at least six words from the play; often people know many more.<br><br>In this riveting and thought-provoking re-examination, philosopher Simon Critchley and psychoanalyst Jamieson Webster explore <i>Hamlet</i>’s continued relevance for a modern world no less troubled by existential anxieties than Elizabethan London.<br><br>Reading the drama alongside writers, philosophers and psychoanalysts—Schmitt, Benjamin, Freud, Lacan, Nietzsche, Melville, and Joyce—the authors delve into the politics of the era, the play’s relationship to religion, the exigencies of desire and the incapacity to love. It is an intellectual investigation that leads to a startling conclusion: <i>Hamlet</i> is a play about nothing in which Ophelia emerges as the true hero.<br><br>From the illusion of theatre and the spectacle of statecraft to the psychological theatre of inhibition and emotion, what Hamlet makes manifest is the modern paradox of our lives: where we know, we cannot act.<br><i>The Hamlet Doctrine</i> is a passionate encounter with a great work of literature that continues to speak to us across centuries.

About the Author

SIMON CRITCHLEY is the Hans Jonas Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research. His many books include Very Little... Almost Nothing, Infinitely Demanding, The Faith of the Faithless, and The Book of Dead Philosophers. JAMIESON WEBSTER is a psychoanalyst in private practice in New York City. She is the author of The Life and Death of Psychoanalysis. She has written for Cabinet, The New York Times, and many psychoanalytic publications. She teaches at Eugene Lang College.