This volume reproduces key critical texts engaging with the play from the past three centuries. During this period critical opinion and approaches to the play have focused on the role of its famous protagonist, on the play in performance, on the representation of English nationalism, and, in the aftermath of World War II, on the representation of tyranny. In more recent decades the play's depiction of mourning and historical trauma, the performative nature of its language, the representation of disability, the place of children in the play, and reconsiderations of the play's genre have all received critical attention.

This new volume in the Shakespeare: The Critical Tradition series increases our knowledge of how Shakespeare's plays were received and understood by critics, editors and general readers. The volume offers, in separate sections, both critical opinions about the play across the centuries and an evaluation of their positions within and their impact on the reception of the play. The chronological arrangement of the text-excerpts allows the readers to assess the changing attitudes to the play, whereas the introduction offers a critical evaluation from a current stance, including modern theories and methods. Thus the volume makes a major contribution to our understanding of the play and of the traditions of Shakespearean criticism surrounding it as they have developed from century to century.