Stay, Illusion!: The Hamlet Doctrine

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Simon Critchley

Jamieson Webster

Pantheon, New York, forthcoming June 2013, English

Nonfiction, General

ISBN: 9780307907615

From the Publisher. The figure of Hamlet haunts our culture like the Ghost haunts him. Arguably, no literary work, not even the Bible, is more familiar to us than Shakespeare's Hamlet. Everyone knows at least six words from the play; often people know many more. Yet the play—Shakespeare's longest—is more than ”passing strange” and becomes deeply unfamiliar when considered closely. Stay, Illusion! is a passionate encounter with the play that affords an original look at this work of literature and the prismatic quality of the play to project meaning. Along the way, Simon Critchley and Jamieson Webster consider the political context and stakes of Shakespeare's play, its relation to religion, the movement of desire, and the incapacity to love.

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— March 2013.

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