Hamlet-Handbuch. Stoffe, Aneignungen, Deutungen. Ed. Peter W. Marx.

• Paul J.C.M. Franssen

This book is somewhat reminiscent of the project of Professor Morris Zapp, a character in David Lodge’s Changing Places, who is working on “a series of commentaries on Jane Austen … examin[ing] the novels from every conceivable angle, historical, biographical, rhetorical, mythical, Freudian, Jungian, existentialist, Marxist, structuralist, Christian-allegorical, ethical, exponential, linguistic, phenomenological, archetypal, you name it.” This handbook tries to do much the same for Shakespeare’s Hamlet, although with a significant difference: whereas Morris Zapp actually hates literature, and writes only for specialists, this critical volume was written with love for its subject, and should appeal to a wide readership of amateur and professional Shakespeareans alike. In 88 entries, each a small to medium-size essay in German or English, we learn all we ever wanted to know about Hamlet, as well as some things we did not even know we were unaware of. I was amused to find out, for instance, that it is only since comparatively recently that Gertrude’s “closet” has been taken to refer to her bedroom, as a consequence of Freud’s oedipal reading; the term actually denotes an office (p. 94).