What Happens in Hamlet

by John Dover Wilson

Book Overview

John Dover Wilson's What Happens in Hamlet is a classic of Shakespeare criticism. First published in 1935, it is still being read throughout the English-speaking world and has been widely translated.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0521091098
• Release Date: January 1951
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 380 Pages
• Weight: 0.82 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.0" x 0.9" x 5.0"

Customer Reviews

The Road to Elsinore

A magnificent book! I'm so glad they came out with a new edition of this book so I had the chance to purchase it (even if I was a bit dismayed to see Mel Gibson on the cover instead of Kenneth Branagh)! My friend had the older edition, which I borrowed frequently while taking a Shakespeare course. Each scene is covered in depth, almost like a summary. It might actually be better titled "What Happens TO Hamlet" because once you finish the book, you feel like you know the man! Great for any student of Shakespeare, or for that matter, anyone interested in Shakespeare or the Prince of Denmark at all!

Dover Wilson Plucks Out the Heart of Hamlet's Mystery

If you could only own one book of analysis on Shakespeare's greatest play, Hamlet, then it ought to be John Dover Wilson's What Happens in Hamlet. Dover Wilson examines and answers many questions that had baffled generations of Shakespearean scholars: Hamlet's delay; Claudius' actions during the dumb show; Hamlet and Lucianus, the nephew of Gonzago; Hamlet's relationship with Ophelia, and with his mother. Dover Wilson's extensive knowledge of the customs and vocubulary of Elizabethan England help explore Hamlet's melancholy and the nature of ghosts during the time of Shakespeare. As a bonus, Dover Wilson responds to T.S. Eliot, who considered Hamlet "a dramatic failure." A must for anyone who loves Shakespeare!

Hands down, the best book

This is the best book on Hamlet that I've come across. Dover Wilson breaks down the show into themes - Gertrude's sin, feigned madness etc - and takes the reader in depth into the play. He provides historical background on the history of Denmark, Elizabethan history, ghosts in drama and really gives the most accurate interpretations that I've come across.I highly recommend this book.

The best book about Hamlet ever printed

If you buy one book about Hamlet, make it this one. This book is a masterpiece, and isn't just a wonderful companion to the complete understanding of the play, it reads like a great detective story. I can't recommend it highly enough!

Wilson is always useful. He makes difficult matters clear.

This is still, after sixty years, the single indispensable book on Hamlet for any reader or playgoer. Wilson presents the play's problems and difficulties (the matter of the ghost, for example) and provides historical context.He examines awkward moments and explains them, using common sense and a broad knowledge of theatrical convention.Although Wilson discusses Hamlet as it unfolds, the book can be opened to almost any page and enjoyed. We learn about Elizabethan spiritualism and what Shakespeare's contemporaries would have thought about Germany and Denmark and marriage and the rights of kings. Wilson's breadth of scholarship is never in doubt, nor is his enthusiasm for his subject. Reading What Happens in Hamlet is like listening to an older, wiser, and most considerate friend.