[home] [news] [this year's award] [publishers] [libraries] [award archive] [faqs] [dublin city public libraries] [IMPAC] [contact us]
|
Books
nominated for the 2002 Award
|
|
|
Book Information |
Click
here for the complete |
| Gertrude and Claudius |
Nominated ISBN: 0375409084 |
Find out more about the author on the following websites: Offers
author profile
|
| by | ||
| John Updike | ||
| Nominated by: | ||
| Bacs-Kiskun County Government, Kecskemet, Hungary |
|
ABOUT THE
BOOK
|
| This is the story of Claudius and Gertrude, King and Queen of Denmark, before the action of Shakespeare's Hamlet begins. Updike employs the nomenclature and certain details of the ancient Scandinavian legends that first describe the prince who feigns madness in order to achieve revenge upon his father's slayer. He brings to life Gertrude's girlhood as the daughter of King Rorik, her arranged marriage to the man who becomes King Hamlet, and her middle-aged affair with her husband's younger brother. Gaps and inconsistencies within the play are, to an extent, filled and explained in this prequel; the figure of Polonius, especially, takes on a larger significance. Beginning in the aura of pagan barbarism, and anticipating Renaissance humanism and empiricism, the tale, in its modern retelling, presents the case for its royal couple that Shakespeare only hinted at. Gertrude and Claudius are seen afresh against a background of fond intentions and familial dysfunction, on a stage darkened by the ominous shadow of a sullen, disaffected prince. |
| ABOUT THE AUTHOR |
|
John
Updike was
born in 1932 in Pennsylvania, U.S. He graduated from Harvard College in
1954 and spent a year in Oxford, England, at the Ruskin School of Drawing
and Fine Art. From 1955 to 1957 he was a member of staff of The New Yorker.
He is the author of more than fifty books, including collections of short
stories, poems, essays, and criticism. His novels have won the Pulitzer
Prize (twice), the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle
Award, the Rosenthal Award and the Howells Medal.
|
 |
[home] [news] [this year's award] [publishers] [libraries] [award archive] [dublin city public libraries] [IMPAC] [faqs] [contact us]
Copyright
© 2011 Dublin City Public Libraries
