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Hamlet, undoubtedly, is the most fascinating and the most relevant drama ever written in the framework of our western culture. It is unique in the inexhaustible depth of its insights, always yielding new ideas on the essence of human behavior. No wonder, then, that it has been and probably always will be the most thoroughly discussed stage play in the western orbit. For somebody equally versed in literary history as in psychology, one strange fact stands out: psychologists and psychoanalysts have, generally, furnished much more valuable contributions to the large body of Hamlet interpretation than the literary historicans who, frequently enough, blamed the former for their “onesidedness.”
K. R. Eissler, though modestly disclaiming definiteness and exhaustiveness, has analyzed the tragedy from every possible angle and produced the most absorbing Hamlet interpretation to date. In contrast to his Leonardo da Vinci and the 2 volume-Goethe, this book seems to me to be the least tainted with orthodox psychoanalytic dogmatism, occasionally, he even contradicts Freud and his predecessor in Hamlet analysis, Ernest Jones. Eissler does not restrict his thorough investigation to Hamlet, but also carefully analyzes other Shakespearean plays, as The Tempest and Romeo and Juliet. He also explores Shakespeare's own life story in relation to all these plays, including King Lear. Eissler's approach must satisfy any literary analyst, since he, also, applies Aristotle's famous theory of the tragedy to Hamlet; the same holds true for the sociologist, as the author discusses Eric Erickson's psychosocial views.
Since in this monumental work nothing is omitted which might have the slightest relation to Hamlet and Shakespeare, we do not think that these topics would need a new investigation — except for the unlikely event that completely new facts would suddenly crop up. For Eissler also devotes some