The Tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmark is widely considered Shakespeare's greatest play. Hamlet is confronted by the ghost of his father who tells him that Hamlet's uncle and mother conspired to poison him. Knowing that his uncle who now sits upon the throne and his mother who has married his uncle and is now his queen have murdered his father Hamlet sets out to avenge his father's death and set things to right. But his plan could destroy the entire realm.To be or not to be-that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to sufferThe slings and arrows of outrageous fortuneOr to take arms against a sea of troubles And by opposing end them. To die-to sleep-No more; and by a sleep to say we endThe heartache and the thousand natural shocks

Includes the unabridged text of Shakespeare's classic play plus a complete study guide that features scene-by-scene summaries, explanations and discussions of the plot, question-and-answer sections, author biography, historical background, and more.

What actions are justified when the fate of a nation hangs in the balance, and who can see the best path ahead? Julius Caesar has led Rome successfully in the war against Pompey and returns celebrated and beloved by the people. Yet in the senate fears intensify that his power may become supreme and threaten the welfare of the republic. A plot for his murder is hatched by Caius Cassius who persuades Marcus Brutus to support him. Though Brutus has doubts, he joins Cassius and helps organize a group of conspirators that assassinate Caesar on the Ides of March. But, what is the cost to a nation now erupting into civil war? A fascinating study of political power, the consequences of actions, the meaning of loyalty and the false motives that guide the actions of men, Julius Caesar is action packed theater at its finest.

Hamlet's "To be or not to be" soliloquy is quoted more often than any other passage in Shakespeare. It is arguably the most famous speech in the Western world - though few of us can remember much about it. This book carefully unpacks the individual words, phrases and sentences of Hamlet's soliloquy in order to reveal how and why it has achieved its remarkable hold on our culture. Hamlet's speech asks us to ask some of the most serious questions there are regarding knowledge and existence. In it, Shakespeare also expands the limits of the English language. Douglas Bruster therefore reads Hamlet's famous speech in "slow motion" to highlight its material, philosophical and cultural meaning and its resonance for generations of actors, playgoers and readers.

As a boy, growing up in Stratford, Shakespeare would have seen travelling players put on some of the old morality plays, where a young man, or in one, “Everyman”, was pulled back and forth by the personified forces of virtue and sin. The tempted young man in those plays knew what the right way was; his only challenge was to resist temptation. In writing Hamlet, Shakespeare created a more complicated character: a young man who isn’t sure what he should do, who has mysteriously mixed feelings about his clashing ideals. The naive young Hamlet starts out full of an angry confidence that he’s on the side of the angels, and that he knows perfectly well what he thinks and feels: “I know not ‘seems’.” Then he’s plunged into a situation where his ideals, of what is “nobler in the mind”, begin to clash. Shakespeare gives Hamlet different roles to play, roles that call for opposing courses of action, but courses that are not obviously all right or all wrong. He’s like an actor in a bad dream, who’s been cast in several parts, and then finds out that more than one of his characters have to be onstage at the same time. Though the part has been played by men in their seventies, Shakespeare casts Hamlet, from the first mention of him as “young Hamlet”, in the role of a young man, with all the sexual and aggressive urges and energies that come naturally to a young man. He makes him, at the same time, a particular type of young man: an idealist, who wants to do what is noblest in the mind, if only he can figure out what that is. As the Prince of Denmark, Hamlet also feels a special duty to preserve “The sanity and health of this whole state.” Besides being a young, idealistic prince, Hamlet shows in his first scene that he’s also a Christian, who can’t kill himself, he says, because “the Everlasting” has “fix’d his canon ’gainst self-slaughter.” The clash comes when Shakespeare then casts this young, idealistic Christian prince in the role of a son, the son of “a dear father murder’d”, whose duty is to take revenge for that “damn’d defeat”--while leaving his mother “to heaven”. As Hamlet the young Christian prince goes off to fulfill his vow of revenge, he begins to realize, painfully, that even he has sin in his heart: he can’t help being contaminated by “our old stock”. Through the central valley of the play, sexual purity appeals to Hamlet as a symbol of moral purity. At least with sexual purity the goal, chastity, is clear. His other ideals, in contrast, turn out to be maddeningly complex and contradictory. He can envision sexual purity but not moral purity. The command to revenge, above all, taints his mind, because it splits apart his ideal of purity, and confronts him with the problem of Hamlet’s clashing ideals. This book tries to show how the Hamlet´s ideals--their impossible attainment symbolized by the impossible ideal of sexual purity--split apart into three. Under the pressure of the command to revenge, what seemed like a single ideal, of what is “nobler in the mind”, splits into three separate, though overlapping, ideals: the heroic ideal, the patriotic ideal and the Christian ideal. The heroic ideal, incarnated by the ghost, stands for family loyalty, honor, and above all, in Hamlet’s situation, for revenge. Clashing with this heroic ideal, and pulling Hamlet away from revenge, the patriotic ideal stands for justice, reverence for the king, and upholding the order of the state. Finally, the Christian ideal sees personal revenge, especially on a king, as a mortal sin.

This thought-provoking book offers short readings on a wide variety of topics prompted by Dr. Ed Cook's engagement with culture and the Christian faith. In the age of sound bites and instant gratification, we sometimes forget that elements of our life deserve more consideration than can be expressed in tweets, posts, and Facebook status updates. The chapters are short, the writing is pithy, and the pages will prompt readers to develop and contemplate their own questions regarding this brave new world in which we find ourselves at the start of the twenty-first century. Just as in life, the joy is often in the journey rather than the destination. The richness of this reading experience may often be found in the questions contemplated rather than in answers discovered. So read, enjoy, and think a bit. You may not agree with everything presented but remember, no offense is intended because, after all, what's offered is just a thought.