The Hamlet Doctrine

Resumen del libro

What Shakespeare's greatest play tells us about the modern world
Arguably, no literary work is more familiar to us than Shakespeare's most famous tragedy. Everyone can quote at least six words from the play; often people know many more.

In this riveting and thought-provoking re-examination, philosopher Simon Critchley and psychoanalyst Jamieson Webster explore Hamlet's continued relevance for a modern world no less troubled by existential anxieties than Elizabethan London.

Reading the drama alongside writers, philosophers and psychoanalysts Schmitt, Benjamin, Freud, Lacan, Nietzsche, Melville, and Joyce the authors delve into the politics of the era, the play's relationship to religion, the exigencies of desire and the incapacity to love. It is an intellectual investigation that leads to a startling conclusion: Hamlet is a play about nothing in which Ophelia emerges as the true hero.

From the illusion of theatre and the spectacle of statecraft to the psychological theatre of inhibition and emotion, what Hamlet makes manifest is the modern paradox of our lives: where we know, we cannot act.

The Hamlet Doctrine is a passionate encounter with a great work of literature that continues to speak to us across centuries.

Biografía del autor

Estudió Filosofía y fue profesor en universidades de Francia, Australia, Noruega, Estados Unidos y Suiza. Actualmente ocupa la cátedra Hans Jonas en la New School for Social Research de Nueva York y es director de la fundación Onassis. Es uno de los filósofos más interesantes y eclécticos del siglo xxi. En Sexto Piso hemos publicado Bowie (2016), En qué pensamos cuando pensamos en fútbol (2017) y Misticismo (2025).

Biografía del autor

x{0026}lt;b Jamieson Websterx{0026}lt;/b ejerce como psicoanalista en Nueva York. Es la autora de x{0026}lt;i The Life and Death of Psychoanalysisx{0026}lt;/i (Karnac, 2011), x{0026}lt;i Conversion Disorderx{0026}lt;/i (Columbia University Press, 2018) y x{0026}lt;i On Breathing: Care in a Time of Catastrophex{0026}lt;/i (Catapult, 2025). También coescribió, junto con Simon Critchley, x{0026}lt;i Stay, Illusion! The Hamlet Doctrinex{0026}lt;/i (Pantheon, 2013). Escribe regularmente en x{0026}lt;i Apology, Artforum, Spike Art Magazinex{0026}lt;/i y en la x{0026}lt;i New York Review of Booksx{0026}lt;/i .