Although I have never had the privilege of meeting the author, this autobiography bestowed that honor on me in its unique fashion. As a former English major, I have carried throughout my lifetime a deep appreciation of Shakespeare’'s sonnets and plays. Thus it should come as no surprise that Dr. Craven’'s book captured my attention from the outset.
In this captivating, deeply moving book, Dr. Kenneth Craven draws aside the curtains of time to reveal an entirely new literary genre. In crafting it, he lays out a major, critical discovery in Shakespeare's Hamlet, simultaneously situating it within the framework of a memoir. To accomplish this, Dr. Craven has tilled a vast, fertile field of acquired knowledge, skills, and experience as a gifted author, professor, Shakespearean authority, humanist, intellectual historian, corporate planner in infrastructure, psychotherapist, and Kremlinologist. The fruits of all these endeavors have coalesced over the years, and have yielded a rich harvest of original thought manifested in Hamlet of Morningside Heights.
It is on two levels that the book appeals to me. Foremost, long after reading it, I continue to be fascinated by Dr. Craven's discovery of the Apostle Paul's ethical principles as integrated throughout Hamlet and still resonating in our culture today. Dr. Craven's monumental discovery and well-developed body of evidence supporting it clearly illustrate his scholarship, creative genius, and unique vision as a writer.
Secondly, and on a lighter note, I enjoyed the autobiographical elements of this masterpiece. I found the selection of critical life experiences charming in some instances, wryly humorous in others, and consistently insightful. In several cases, the author's experiences evoke that smile of recognition that comes from recollection of a universally experienced emotion which, while only endured at the outset, assumes a smooth patina with the passage of time.
All in all, in Hamlet of Morningside Heights, Dr. Craven has seamlessly interwoven all the historical, cultural, ethical, and autobiographical elements of his narrative, and that is a remarkable achievement of style and substance!
More than four centuries ago, William Shakespeare graced the world with Hamlet, a true prince of the Renaissance. Now, Dr. Kenneth Craven, another Renaissance man, appears in our midst, and graces us with this artistically rendered narrative of his remarkable life, informed and sustained by Shakespeare's Hamlet. Hamlet of Morningside Heights is a unique reading experience that should be welcomed and savored for its richness of language, ethical depth, and fascinating originality of thought. -Jean Ann McCormick
