ABSTRACT
The word 'green' is, then, clearly a crux; that is, a place in the language of the work where the semantic and the thematic contexts overlap yielding a particularly rich potential for meaning. Identifying cruxes, those places where more than one contexts is productive, is, as shown here, one key to effective close reading. Usually cruxes only stand out on repeat readings of a work, or at least, when a reasonable understanding of a work has been reached. When we are dealing with a Shakespearean soliloquy we are analysing language at its very highest intensity – where cruxes will be common. One approach to this is to focuses on already identified thematic, semantic and syntactic contexts. Any extract from Hamlet can be appreciated in a way once a few core principles are understood, namely that words mean something in context, and that this context may be understood semantically, syntactically and thematically, and, furthermore, that these contexts come together in cruxes.
