Hamlet's Castle is both a theoretical and a practical examination of the interactions that take place in a literary classroom. The book traces the source of literature's power to the relationship between its illusional quality and its abstract meaning and relates these elements to the process by which a group, typically an academic class, forms a judgment about a literary work. In focusing on the importance of the exchange of ideas by readers, Gordon Mills reveals a new way of looking at literature as well as a different concept of the social function of the literary classroom and the possible application of this model to other human activities.

The three fundamental elements that constitute Mills's schema are the relationship between a reader and the illusional quality of literature, the relationship between a reader and the meaning of a text, and the concept of social experience within the environment of a text. The roles of illusion and meaning in a text are explored in detail and are associated with areas outside literature, including science and jurisprudence. There is an examination of the way in which decisions are forced by peers upon one another during discussion of a literary work-an exchange of opinion which is commonly a source of pleasure and insight, sought for its own sake. In the course of his study, Mills shows that the act of apprehending a literary structure resembles that of apprehending a social structure. From this relationship, he derives the social function of the literary classroom.

In combining a theoretical analysis with the practical objective of determining what value can be found in the study of literature by groups of people, Mills has produced a critical study of great significance. Hamlet's Castle will change concepts about the purpose of teaching literature, affect the way in which literature is taught, and become involved in the continuing discussion of the relationship of literary studies to other disciplines.

America believes in individualism—but what is individualism? This question leads into unexpected areas of life and thought. It touches upon almost every intellectual discipline concerned with human life. Any answer, to be taken seriously, must recognize this complexity. A broad understanding of the meaning of individualism can be reached only through the insight of many workers in many different fields.

This volume brings together seven of the United States' most distinguished scholars, representing the fields of anthropology, economics, government, history, literature, and philosophy. The trend of their thinking can be suggested by a few excerpts from their essays:

• "An individual divorced from a cultural milieu would not be a human being; he would be a mere hominid."—Leslie A. White

• "The trouble is that 'individual' is a stop-thought word. It numbs the mind, so that once it has been uttered, inquiry stops."—Clarence E. Ayres

• "Not even an individual's perfections are his alone; like his imperfections, they are group-made."— Paul A. Samuelson

• "The twentieth century has witnessed the emergence of a new kind of American individualism, the individualism of nonconformity, which actually challenges the compulsive democracy of the Lockean individualism by which the nation has centrally and historically lived."—Louis Hartz

• "The individualism of the American frontier was an individualism of personal self-reliance and of hardihood and stamina rather than an individualism of intellectual independence and personal self-expression."—David M. Potter

• "The present conditions in which the self must be preserved are radically different from those of a generation, even a decade ago. . . . The dogmatics of present self-assertion are defined and pursued in an existential circumstance."—Frederick J. Hoffman

• "Individuality means creativity, and 'laws of creativity,' other than statistical ones, are, I hold, a contradiction in terms."—Charles Hartshorne