Praise for Hamlet of Morningside Heights

“One fine book”                        

       -James Shapiro, Columbia University              

“Compelling.” “Through Hamlet, New Yorker Kenneth Craven surveys his career as ‘humanist, intellectual historian, corporate planner on infrastructure, psychotherapist, and Kremlinologist’.” “Craven sees four passages in Paul’s Romans 12 and 13 as creating a ‘mysterious core’ in the play.”

      – Elizabeth Scott-Baumann, Leverhulme Research Fellow

         at the University of Leicester (Times Literary Supplement, June 22, 2012)

“Nobody beside Dr. Craven ever studied the way that Paul’s epistle to the Romans affects the play Hamlet. It has staggeringly wide-ranging implications, many of which are identified in this account of how and when these thoughts resounded in Dr. Craven’s mind. … Kenneth Craven has led a remarkable life, as a lifelong student of Shakespeare and much else. His book records his experiences, entwining its account with references to the work which sustained much of it: Hamlet.”

       – Andrew Gurr, Pre-eminent Shakespearean,

          Director of the Renaissance Texts Research Centre (Foreword to Hamlet of Morningside Heights)

“Monumental discovery.” “A masterpiece.” “Wryly humorous.”

       – Jean Ann McCormick, Informed reader

“Charming and bold.” “You have spoken like a happy and solid humanist.”

       – Kevin O’Brien, President and Artistic Director, Theater of the Word

“An astonishing tale of discoveries personal, scholarly and of the origins and nature of modern culture. Of course it would be preposterous to expect such discoveries from anyone, but somehow as I read it seemed right that you would be the person to see these things.”

       – Frank T. Boyle, English Professor, Fordham University

“As Craven so aptly puts it – ‘Until now, modern audiences have viewed Hamlet without knowing that Shakespeare has embedded within the play one set of ethics for soul seekers and a more insensitive credo’ ironically appealing for wealth seekers in America.”
Ben Witherington III, distinguished Amos Professor of New Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary