See above to read the dramaturg's complete annotations on this article!

Kaara Peterson considers Western culture's infatuation with representing dead, beautiful women in the arts. Ophelia is a special case wherein her death exists romanticized both in literary and in visual form. Peterson's essay discusses how the external representation of Ophelia muddles her internal capability for self-actualization. Peterson argues that there is no "true Ophelia" underneath the frustrating romanticization of her tragedy, but instead that these romanticizations are unfortunately successful in reducing her to a symbol rather than a fully-fledged personhood. Peterson's essay is a must-read for Ophelia's actress, as well as Gertrude's actress, who may struggle to understand why their characters' roles are cast aside, and why these maidens and mothers become mysteries rather than being unmistakable. While this read may be unfortunate for feminist interpretations of Hamlet, it does offer a significant insight into how audience and autorial perception plays into the characterization of those in literature who are powerless to define themselves.

Cruttwell's objective is to observe the apparent physiology and psychology apparent within sixteenth-century and early seventeenth-century England in order to observe what effects these may have had on fiction at the time, particularly in Shakespeare's writings. Hamlet is heavily invested in both, with its frequent mentions of disease and the obvious thematic presence of "madness." This article will especially benefit the physical actor, who is invested in how narrative storytelling pervades through the body itself. Cruttwell's discussion of "spirits" is heavily familiar to Hamlet's simultaneously psychological and religious elements. But the strength of Cruttwell's article is his use of various Shakespeare texts; throughout his argument, we as his reader comes to know the contexts of history or, alternatively, of a specific work, but instead we the reader becomes aware of how physiology and psychology present throughout Shakespeare's style of writing as a whole. 

To learn more about the dramaturg's concepts for audience engagement, refer to this document!