This book explores how the philosopher Hegel, who had studied Shakespeare first as a schoolboy and then continued to cite him throughout his academic career, responded to the challenges of extracting deep philosophical significance and previously unnoticed implications from this playwright's tragedies, especially Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet and King Lear. More specifically, it addresses how Hegel interprets the contrast between Hamlet, as the first truly modern individual, with the character Macbeth, who was rooted in a superstitious mindset regarding witches' prophecies of his fate and the supernatural more generally. This contrast, he argues, illustrates the transition from the ideological characteristic of a feudal social order to an early modern one, while illustrating the inner tensions and contradictions of the latter's extreme individualism with which we continue to grapple in today's world. Hegel's Relationship to Shakespeare's Hamlet and Macbeth shows how Hegal employed Shakespeare's imaginary to delve into ideas of self-awareness, freedom, individuality and the recognition of human mortality and finitude. The book is relevant and accessible for both Hegel and Shakespeare scholars. Dr Salter is a professor within the School of Humanities' Department of Intercultural Communication (CUHK SZ) teaching Hamlet and other English literature and language courses. He has published five major monographs based on earlier research interests in interpretive-linguistic interests in war crimes trials and geopolitical issues arising from selective prosecution. He has taught at Birmingham, Ulster, Lancaster and Central Lancashire universities before taking up his present post in CUHK SZ in China.

He has published over 50 book chapters/refereed publications, many of which concern Hegel's contribution to constitutional, semiotics and property scholarship, as well as Hegel's approach of immanent criticism as a vital stage of his wider model of critical and self-critical dialectical analysis.