Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T22:23:40.029Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 4 - The Delay’s the Thing: Patience, Prodigality and Revenge in Hamlet

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2020

Sarah Lewis
Affiliation:
King's College London
Get access

Summary

In this chapter I return to the concepts of patience, prodigality and revenge to explore how a more nuanced reading of the opposition between action and delay that moves beyond that binary gives us new ways to think about the construction of gendered and sexualised identities in Hamlet. I identify the ways in which the axes of time and of gender intersect through the dramatic identities of the patient virgin, the prodigal and the revenging son in Hamlet. By destabilising time, I suggest that Hamlet also destabilises gender categories. The discourses of patience and prodigality which drive that destablisation, and which I have charted in this chapter and in this book, give us new ways to understand Hamlet as procrastinating revenger.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×