Introduction : impure aesthetics -- A Shakespearean aesthetic : into the woods outside Athens -- A midsummer night's dream : eros and the aesthetic -- Modernity, usury, and art in Timon of Athens -- The aesthetics of death and mourning -- Hamlet as mourning-play -- The aesthetics of the trauerspiel -- Hamlet as trauerspiel -- Post-script : Hamlet, subjectivity, and aesthetics -- Beautiful death in Romeo and Juliet -- Conclusion : the critical present.