The melancholy Dane and a rich cast of characters come alive in this multimedia seminar that investigates the text, history, and themes that fuel Shakespeare’s immortal tragedy. This CD-ROM features scholarly video commentary by Professors Stanley Wells and Russell Jackson of the Shakespeare Institute, who analyze the play and its relevance today. Topics discussed include the themes of death and revenge, the use of comic treatment in tragedy, the play’s broad range and vitality, and psychoanalytical aspects of the characters and their interactions. Other features include a complete and fully searchable text of the play, synchronized with dramatizations of key scenes and speeches with on-screen text; a synopsis of the play; lists of key characters and explanations of their roles; literary criticism of the text; scholarly essays featuring modern perspectives on Hamlet (Marxist, feminist, psychoanalytic, deconstructionist, structuralist); a biography of Shakespeare; excerpts from A. C. Bradley’s definitive lecture series, Shakespearean Tragedy; a facsimile of the First Folio edition of the text; a clickable word glossary with accurate modern definitions of words no longer in common use; a bibliography of critical works; a history of Hamlet in performance; and Internet links to Web sites devoted to Shakespearean scholarship. The CD-ROM can be used with either Windows or Macintosh.