Remembering Shakespeare, in this year of the 400th anniversary of his death, would seem to call especially for the most far-reaching aspect of his achievement, for so long unrecognized, to be at last duly noted and laid open to view. So John O'Meara proceeds in this book, getting us to re-focus on Hamlet, and the great tragedies that follow it, in a direct relation to the last plays and most notably The Tempest. The longstanding challenge and problem of living through tragedy, as opposed to living beyond it or simply carrying on in spite of it, is hereby highlighted. Shakespeare was able to live through tragedy and consequently could come into those higher evolutionary states of mind and being, until now so little known, that are so impressively represented in his last plays. To recognize and identify these states of being, and the 'brave new world' they open up, may well be the last of our tasks as participants in Shakespeare's work. In the meantime, many of our most cherished dramatic preferences, not to mention our usual notions of solutions to tragedy, will have had to be left behind as illusions of no final consequence. Here is that most far-reaching aspect of our relationship to his achievement that Shakespeare waits on us to act upon, bearing with us more or less patiently as his tragedy continues.

John O'Meara received his Ph.D in 1986. He taught for many years at Concordia University, the University of Toronto, and the University of Ottawa. He is the author of numerous publications on Shakespeare and Romanticism.