SHAKESPEARE is my Homeboy

Hamlet criticism summary

Low, Anthony "Hamlet and the Ghost of Purgatory: Intimations of Killing the Father." English Literary Renaissance Vol 29, No 3. Autumn 1999.

A. The Journal:
According to its website, the English Literary Renaissance is "a journal devoted to current criticism and scholarship of Tudor and early Stuart English literature, 1485-1665, including Shakespeare, Spenser, Donne, and Milton. It is unique in featuring the publication of rare texts and newly discovered manuscripts of the period and current annotated bibliographies of work in the field. It is illustrated with contemporary woodcuts and engravings of Renaissance England and Europe. Published at the Massachusetts Center for Renaissance Studies, based in Amherst MA." Occasionally, the journal will focus an issue on a special topic. Usually, the journal contains between five and eight articles from a variety of critical perspectives.

B. Introduction
In his introduction, Mr. Low argues that Hamlet was groundbreaking in developing a sense of individualism in modern literature. He seems to take a "new historicist" approach to interpret the significance of the Royal Injunctions of 1547, a policy that abolished purgatory within the Church of England. Low will argue the significance and impact this document has in order to change our understanding and interpretation of Hamlet. Low also sets out inn his introduction to show how another "essential paradigm of modernity" presented in Hamlet (necessary also for individualism) is "killing the father". He seems to cite many, many different contexts and authors to make his argument. In his introductory paragraphs, he refers to "Enlightment, Romantic, modernist and postmodernist individualism" He also quotes numerous authors, including Freud, Gertrude Stein, J. Hillis Miller. Further, within the first section of his paper, Low refers to King Lear, Coriolanus, Darwin, Troilus and Cressida, Tillyard, as well as the concepts of Protestant nationalism, covert Catholicism and skeptical agnosticism. And this is all within the first four pages! Quite honestly, looking at his introduction, it is not clear to me the angle from which he intends to make his argument in this essay.

C. Expectations
This seems like a very difficult text, very dense and difficult to get through. As a result of this overwhelming barrage of information in the introduction, I had no sense of where this article or his argument was going, or from what perspective the author is making his argument. With so many different references and quotes, it's difficult to follow his argument. After skimming the article, I was able to determine that he spends the bulk of his argument on the concept of Purgatory. He ties together political and religious history in order to analyze the character of Hamlet and the Ghost of Hamlet's father in those contexts. Ultimately, I found the author and his argument fascinating and very educated, I just don't think that I was always able to pull it all together and make sense of it.