Who's
this? Kiernan Ryan is Professor of English at Royal
Holloway, University of London and a Fellow of New Hall, University
of Cambridge.
Context:
For Kiernan Ryan, Hamlet's appeal lies in 'the heartbreaking conflict between what men and women want to be and could be, and what the world and time in which they find themselves compels them to become'.
Did
you know?Hamlet as a play stimulates so much
psychological debate that some productions have found it useful
to engage the services of a psychiatrist in rehearsals. Evidently
it is a play which examines as much internal as external conflict.
The psychological tendency to project onto others those qualities
we most dislike in ourselves allows for interesting observations
in Hamlet's dealings with Claudius and Gertrude.
