Pt. 1. Poetic beginnings
Word and love games: Berowne and Ida's prince
The trespass of intimacy: artists in crime
Pt. 2. Hamlet's afterlives
Toils of fate: Dickens, Hamlet, and Malvolio
The angel of dust: a god in exile
Pt. 3. Shades of King Lear
Thou, nature, art my goddess: the garden and the heath
A choral mind trap: Hardy and the homilists
Wisdom and wit: Lear's fool to Dagonet
The end of illusion: Childe Roland and Caliban
Pt. 4. Grace and death
A toil of grace: Cleopatra and her heirs
Off the edge: end games and elegy
The hills are shadows: time the devourer
Oracle meets wit: the promised end.