The other day, I played a part, as audience, to this wonderful online meeting organized by Prof. Harvey Mansfield & his wife Anna. A number of Straussian scholars spoke lovingly, occasionally quite humorously, about Paul Cantor, who was indeed oftentimes funny, & very accomplished—they remembered him for his way of life more than his work; he was a good friend & an inexhaustible conversationalist.
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I again think quotation is the best kind of tribute I can make. Here is a link to the very first pages of Cantor's essential book on Hamlet. All conservatives should avoid buying from Amazon whenever possible--Alibris is a good alternative--but I do love Amazon's Look Inside feature, which in this case it allows you to read the fine preface and the first few pages of Canto's first chapter, which discusses the play's Renaissance context. https://www.amazon.com/Shakespeare-Hamlet-Landmarks-World-Literature/dp/052154937X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=23JAGXGCJ64PX&keywords=Paul+Cantor%2C+Hamlet&qid=1650565632&s=books&sprefix=paul+cantor%2C+hamlet%2Cstripbooks%2C106&sr=1-1
And here, picking up shortly after that Look Inside material, is a key bit that I found very helpful:
"...what is distinctive about Hamlet is precisely that his mind is open to all the competing models of heroism available in the Renaissance. He can admire martial virtue and is haunted by thoughts of the granduer of classical antiquity, but at the same time is acutely aware of how Christianity has altered the terms of heroic action and called into question traditional ideas of heroism. Thus a survey of the Renaissance epic tradition [what Canto's 5 or so preceding pages expertly gave us--touching upon Orlando Furioso, Gerusalemm Liberata, The Lusiads, The Faerie Queene] can help us understand the basis of Shakespearean tragedy. Renaissance epics reflect the tendency of the age to try to bring together disparate realms of value, most notably the classical and the Christian. As one can see in the knights of the Fairie Queene, Renaissance epic heroes often try to embody public and private virtues...to be at once fierce warriors and courteous lovers. But these attempts at arriving at a higher synthesis of antithetical values can end up highlighting the conflicts between them."
"...To understand this...I wish to turn to what I regard as the most satisfactory and comprehensive theory of tragedy, [note the polite downgrading of both Aristotle and Nietzsche there] the one developed in Hegel's Aesthetics. Hegel argues that a tragic situation involves a conflict between two goods, not a conflict between good and evil. ...That is why a tragic situation is so deeply perplexing : it calls into question our unthinking assumption that the goods of this world ought to be compatible..."
"Hegel's theory of tragedy thus suggests why Renaissance become such a great age of tragic drama. If tragedy involves the conflict of two goods, it ought to flourish in an age in which competing systems of value lead o such conflicts..."
"[The Renaissance era] ...was guided by an ideal of human totality, of trying to develop all sides of human nature harmoniously. In the heroes of Renaissance epic as well as in historical figures from Leonardo da Vinci to Sir Philip Sidney, we see this ideal celebrated: to be a painter, a scientist and inventor all at once, or a poet, a soldier and a courtier. ...one as to bring into conjunction reals of value normally kept apart. The hope is to reconcile them, but by bringing them into close conjunction, one may well end up being force to think through how really incompatible the values are."
As you can see, that's most promising launching point for a study of Hamlet, and one that itself can teach you much.