The gap between thought and action has rarely been contemplated with so much intellectual excitement and energy as it is in this book. Indeed, this study of <i>Hamlet</i> is a kind of thrill ride, a breathless investigation of some of the most important ideas from philosophy and psychoanalysis from the Modern era. But the great pleasure it holds in store for most readers has to do with its profound understanding of reflection, and its discontents.

- Charles Baxter, author of <i>The Feast of Love</i>,

A brilliant set of readings of a work that, like an insistent ghost, seems to have more to tell us with each passing era.

- Tom McCarthy, author of <i>C</i>,

In their provocative new study, Simon Critchley, a professor of philosophy at the New School, and Jamieson Webster, a practicing psychoanalyst and author, offer a novel take on this most commented-upon of dramas. It is as much an astute account of the reactions of various philosophers and psychoanalysts to the play-and their often profound and sometimes wacky analyses-as a chronicle of the authors' own passionate response to virtually every aspect of the tragedy. The authors have an impressive mastery of all the factual details of the play . . . their discussions of such thinkers as Hegel and Nietzsche or Freud and Lacan are at once pithy and perceptive.

Wall Street Journal