Hamlet and Oedipus

by Ernest Jones

“The Freud-Jones view of Hamlet is very widely known and probably this century’s most distinctive contribution to Shakespearean criticism.” ―Norman N. Holland, Director, Center for the Psychological Study of the Arts, State University of New York at Buffalo, in Psychoanalysis and Shakespeare A classic study in the psychoanalysis of literature, Hamlet and Oedipus investigates Hamlet’s mind as it relates to the general psychological conditions foreshadowed in the Oedipus legend. Dr. Jones gives a comprehensive view of the Hamlet literature and shows how the explanation of Hamlet’s mysterious inhibitions lies in his unconscious conflicts. The Hamlet theme is itself an old one, and there is a full discussion of the place of the saga in the complex mythological group to which it belongs.

Genres: Psychology, Literary Criticism, Nonfiction, Psychoanalysis, Criticism, Theory, Literature

172 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1949

About the author

Alfred Ernest Jones was a neurologist and psychoanalyst, and Sigmund Freud’s official biographer. Jones was the first English-speaking practitioner of psychoanalysis and became its leading exponent in the English-speaking world where, as President of both the British Psycho-Analytical Society and the International Psychoanalytic Association in the 1920s and 1930s, he exercised a formative influence in the establishment of its organisations, institutions and publications.