Hamlet (Ignatius Critical Series)

I've been teaching Hamlet using this text for about two years (four semesters) to college freshmen/sophomores in a general composition/literature class. The Ignatius edition is the best that I've used (and I've used several); I put it slightly ahead of the Folger edition. (The Folger edition does have the advantage that it includes plot summaries of scenes -- very helpful to beginning Shakespeare readers -- which the Ignatius lacks.)The essays that are included are solid and insightful. They are particularly helpful in helping readers understand the Christian context of the play. Regardless of whether or not the reader is Christian, it's necessary to understand Christian ideas about sin, repentance, and justice in order to grasp the nuances of the play. When students are encouraged to really think deeply about these topics, they end up making connections between the events of the play and the events of their own lives -- for instance, about the struggle between desire ("I want what I want" -- just like Claudius) and reason ("I want to do what is right -- but how do I figure out what that is?" -- like Hamlet). This edition has been the most useful for me in terms of helping my students to do this kind of deep thinking.On a practical level, I like the editor's choices about what words to gloss; to any adult reader who has read a lot of Shakespeare and other classic authors, the vocabulary glosses may seem like overkill, but it has been my experience that my 18-22-year-old students need and benefit from them.It is helpful that the glosses are footnoted rather than end- or side-noted; this makes it easier to find them if you need them, while not being too intrusive if you don't. Visually, it's an attractive edition with plenty of white space -- important for taking marginal notes! - and the full names of characters spelled out.

In my adult re-reading of the masterpiece it has struck me how much was left intentionally ambiguous by Shakespeare. Wonderful to interpret the words a certain way in reading, another way in hearing the performance, and yet another by a critical essay.

Wonderful edition

Very happy with book and with seller.

A decent book with a few modern critical essays.

I find this very interesting, at least one of the reviewers who gave such a low review not only reviewed this book, but every other book in this Ignatius Critical Series edit by Joseph Peace. In each one, he gives only one star, basially saying the book is a waste of time and money.Something is rotten in the state of Denmark!Why would someone, keep on reading all the books in this series, and then say that reading them is a waste of time? It just does not make sense! Not only that, but the majority of the book is giving nothing but the text of Hamlet. How can any true fan of Shakespeare give that one star. Just the text of Hamlet alone would make it at least 2 stars.So it seems to me that there are some here who have a hidden agenda of not wanting me to read this book - not because of its allegedly poor literary value. So the more they protested, the more I was intrigued.So I got the book, and I am so glad I did! For the first time, Hamlet came alive to me. The footnotes were enough to hep be understand the arachaic phrases, but I was not overwhelmed with them. The editor wanted Shakespear to speak for himself. None of the footnotes tried to persuade you to their interpretations. That was left to the commentaries after you read the Hamlet story.The commentaries were extremely insightful, looking at Hamlet from a Catholic perspective. And why not? Other commentaries look at Hamlet from a modernist or a feminist perspective. Why not from a Catholic perspective? Again, I do not understand these one-star critics. If they were really fans of Shakespeare, they would be happy to see a book like this that would broaden Shakespeare's audience. But it seems they would rather that Hamlet never be read than to read Hamlet from a politically incorrect view.To read why Shakespear was probably a Catholic and was writing from a Catholic persepective, you may want to read  The Quest for Shakespeare