Hamlet And The Snowman: Reflections On Vision And Meaning In Life And Literature (american University Studies)

In __Hamlet and the Snowman__, personal reflections of the author are joined with literary criticism in a common endeavor – a search to arrive at vision and meaning in life and literature. In the course of that effort, literary classics by Anderson, Shakespeare, Melville, Dostoyevsky, and Becket are analyzed, and the findings are evaluated within the framework of Newman's personal reflections. The search, taken step by step, slowly leads to those fundamental elements that make up one's vision of life and its meaning as well as recognition of their universality and similarities in both life and literature. I. About Questions And Strangeness -- Ii. The Snowman And His Friend -- Iii. Hamlet On Seemings And Truth -- Iv. A Meeting Between Friends -- V. Bartleby's World -- Vi. Some Questions For Melville -- Vii. Reality And Realization -- Viii. The Two Worlds Of Falstaff -- Ix. Forebodings And Silences -- X. Some Notes From Underground -- Xi. Withinness And Aboutness -- Xii. Beckett's Figures Of Existence -- Xiii. Say Something; Listen -- Xiv. Cycles And Sameness. Benjamin Newman.