TY  - BOOK
AU  - Greenblatt,Stephen
TI  - Hamlet in purgatory
T2  - Princeton classics
SN  - 9780691160245 (pbk. : acidfree paper)
AV  - PR2807 .G69 2013
PY  - 2013///
CY  - Princeton
PB  - Princeton University Press
KW  - Shakespeare, William,
KW  - Purgatory in literature
KW  - Christianity and literature
KW  - England
KW  - History
KW  - 16th century
KW  - 17th century
KW  - Ghosts in literature
KW  - English drama (Tragedy)
KW  - Christian influences
N1  - Previous edition: 2001; Includes bibliographical references (pages 263-314) and index
N2  - This book delves into the author's longtime fascination with the ghost of Hamlet's father, and his daring and ultimately gratifying journey takes him through surprising intellectual territory. It yields an extraordinary account of the rise and fall of Purgatory as both a belief and a lucrative institution as well as a capacious new reading of the power of Hamlet. In the mid-sixteenth century, English authorities abruptly changed the relationship between the living and dead. Declaring that Purgatory was a false poem, they abolished the institutions and banned the practices that Christians relied on to ease the passage to Heaven for themselves and their dead loved ones. Greenblatt explores the fantastic adventure narratives, ghost stories, pilgrimages, and imagery by which a belief in a grisly prison house of souls had been shaped and reinforced in the Middle Ages. He probes the psychological benefits as well as the high costs of this belief and of its demolition
ER  -