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Hamlet, Psychoanalysis, and Contemporary Politics

Irony, Ideology, Authoritarianism, Hysteria, and the Universal Subject

Hamlet, Psychoanalysis, and Contemporary Politics cover

Hamlet, Psychoanalysis, and Contemporary Politics

Irony, Ideology, Authoritarianism, Hysteria, and the Universal Subject

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Pre-order. Available 17 Sep 2026
£57.60 RRP £72.00 Website price saving £14.40 (20%)

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Description

Hamlet: Psychoanalysis, Ideology, and the Crisis of Modernity

This book offers a bold reinterpretation of Hamlet through five interwoven frames-ironic, ideological, psycho-social, emotional, and scientific-to reveal how Shakespeare's play speaks directly to today's cultural, political, and psychological dilemmas. Drawing on Freud, Lacan, Hegel, and Marx, the author argues that Hamlet is not only a metaphorical autobiography of Shakespeare but also a profound meditation on virtue signaling, neoliberal capitalism, melancholic subjectivity, and the modern quest for certainty. By combining close textual analysis with psychoanalytic and philosophical theory, this work proposes a new model for reading literature-one that uncovers the unconscious logic of ideology and the enduring relevance of Shakespeare's most enigmatic tragedy.

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Table of Contents

1) Introduction
2) “The Play's the Thing”: Metafiction, Irony, Centrist Narcissism, and Virtue Signaling
3) Thrift, Thrift: Ideology, Capitalism, and Neoliberal Nihilism
4) “The Commandment All Alone Shall Live”: Conservative Ideology, Authoritarianism, and the Rewriting of History
5) “These Words, like Daggers, enter in Mine Ears”: Hysteria, Symbolic Violence, and the Left
6) Modern Democratic Liberalism after Hamlet: Psychoanalysis and the Universal Subject

Product details

Bloomsbury Academic Test
Published 17 Sep 2026
Format Ebook (Epub & Mobi)
Edition 1st
Pages 188
ISBN 9798216450221
Imprint Bloomsbury Academic
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Author

Robert Samuels

Robert Samuels is lecturer of writing at Universit…

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