A while back I ordered some books from the Dallas Institute, among them The Tragic Abyss. Now that I am teaching Hamlet once again, I thought to see if there was an essay on it in the book. There was. A very good one.
I have known intuitively that there was a Christian understanding of the universe and Christian themes underpining Shakespeare’s work. But I’ve never had them pointed out directly.
Judith Stewart Shank’s essay “Fathoming ‘Cliffs of Fall Frightful’” has made me see Hamlet in an entirely new way. It is that moment of returning to a place you know well and seeing it for the first time. Why did I never see all of this before?
