Hamlet critical quotations

Von Goethe - about Hamlet

‘soft and…noble…royal flower’ with ‘moral rectitude’

Friedrich Nietzche - Hamlet

he has ‘had a real glimpse into the essence of things’ .

‘They have understood, and it disgusts them to act, for their action can change nothing in the eternal nature of things’

Jones - Hamlet

‘was ever a tragic hero so torn and tortured’

Spaeth - Hamlet

‘not only is he a different hamlet in different situation…but for a large part of his time his words and acts are calculated mystifications’

Mack - Hamlet

Hamlet can be privileged in madness to say things

Showalter - Hamlet

‘melancholy male madness’

Emma Smith - Hamlet

‘Hamlet is stuck, physically and emotionally’

‘fixed in the role of a child’

‘own instincts are towards undoing’

Ward - Claudius

‘a worthy opponent for Hamlet’

‘moves others by the witchcraft of his wits’

Hamilton - Claudius

‘the killing of Claudius alone would not resolve the corruption in the state of denmark’

Kittredge - Claudius

‘King Claudius is a superb figure - almost as great a creation as hamlet himself’

‘his intellectual powers are of the highest order’

Parvini - Claudius

‘indubitably bad’ in response to the ‘indubitably good’ of hamlet

J. M. Beatty - Claudius

‘Claudius is a man not altogether bad who, beacause of uncontrolled passion and insatiate ambition, becomes a murderer’

Greenblatt - Ophelia

‘the fragile Ophelia begins to crack under the strain of hamlet’s misogynisitic revulsion’

Showalter - Ophelia

‘Ophelia’s affliction was erotamania: love madness’

Leverenz - Ophelia

‘Ophelia is a play within a play, or a player trying to please several imperious directors at once’ ‘mirror for a mad inducing world’

Rutter - Hamlet

‘Hamlet’s feminine double’

Camden - Ophelia

‘as a minor personage of the tragedy’

Strachey - Ophelia

‘there is more to be felt than to be said in the study of Ophelia’s character just because she is a creation of such perfectly feminine proportions and beauty’

Mansfield - Ophelia

‘poor wispy ophelia’

Leverenz - Gertrude

‘Gertrude’s inconstancy not only brings on disgust and incestuous feelings, it is also the sign of diseased doubleness in everyone who has accommodated to her social role’

Smith - Gertrude

‘Gertrude believes that the quiet women best please men, and pleasing men is Gertrude’s main interest’

Montgomery - Gertrude

‘Gertrude’s story parallel’s her son’

‘Gertrude is, in her own right, dramatis persona, a character who develops herself and helps to shape the play throughout’

greenblatt - Gertrude

his mother’s disturbing carnality’

Robert M. Smith - Gertrude

the text reveals the Queen guilty of the first three charges: hasty marriage, incest, adultery. She is innocent, however, throughout the play of any knowledge of the murder of Hamlet's father

Hartwig - Polonius - 1

‘He is, first a ‘father’ in a play that is dominated by father figures’

‘a Machiavellian schemer who takes his plotting to absurd proportions’

‘Polonius is not attuned to his daughter’s precarious social position, but rather that he is wittily intrigued by its corners’

Crocker - Polonius

‘no character suffers the indignities of Hamlet’s disregard more strikingly than polonius’

Taylor - Polonius

‘the depth of the moral evil in Polonius’

Fisher - Polonius

‘Shakespeare’s last humanist’

‘Polonius is a courtier, a father, a counsellor, an intriguer, a literary critic, and a fool; he is also a humanist’

Bell - Laertes

‘misguided hothead’

‘perfect avenger, but stupid and not really so honourable’

Hartwig - Polonius - 2

‘Polonius is to Laertes what Claudius fails to be to Hamlet’

Harkins - young men

Hamlet, Laertes, and Fortinbras are deliberately ocded as young in order ot deny them mature status and prolong their subservience’

Terry - Laertes - 2

‘Laertes’ instant and violent reaction bespeaks the old chivalric code of honour’

Terry - Laertes - 1

‘Laertes is willing to ignore his conscience and to burn in hell’

Kemp - Horatio

‘Horatio killed King Hamlet’

Spaeth - Horatio

‘Horatio’s hamlet is the Hamlet that wins our sympathy at the close’

Engle - Horatio

‘horatio’s impartiality’ and ‘disinterestedness’ ‘when hamlet doubts he is right he consults horatio’

Hui - Horatio

‘protestant student, the ideal friend - the roman stoic’

‘horatio’s appearances mark pivotal moments of revelation’

Kettle - Horatio

‘from beginning ot end he is a wandering ineptitude who has never had a single suggestion’

Warley - Horatio

‘to interpret Hamlet is to become Horatio’

Battenhouse - King Hamlet

‘the apparition is to be understood as wholly subjective’

Greenblatt - King Hamlet

‘this is a protestant son haunted by the ghost of a Catholic father’

Hamilton - Hamlet

‘as long as hamlet sees this action as a son’s private revenge for a murdered father, he himself will beb performing an act, if not as evil as claudius’ initial murder, yet evil and damnable nevertheless’

Kiernan Ryan - Hamlet

Hamlet’s obligation is to revenge his father

Vardy - Polonius

‘a source of comic relief’

Critchley and Webster - Hamlet

‘anti-oedipus’

‘hamlet is arguably the drama of surveillance in a police state ‘self-surveillance’

Carolyn Heilbrun - Gertrude

Gertrude, if she is anything, is a woman who loves her son... she is a strong-minded, sensible, much-loved woman... whose tragic flaw is a failure of imagination.