Hamlet Critics

Readings of Hamlet - Maynard Mack

‘No one is likely to accept another man’s reading of Hamlet…anyone who tries to throw light on one part of the play usually throws the rest into deeper shadow’.

Productions of Hamlet - William Hazlitt

‘There is no play that suffers so much in being transferred to the stage.’

Horatio’s moral standing/education - John Mullen

 “this bookish young man who finds a better guide in classical sources than in Christian belief”

The law of ‘probability or necessity’ - Aristotle

Horatio + Hamlet both act outside of these laws (are superior to normal human nature) and therefore are enamoured by the audience

Claudius’s merits - G. Wilson Knight

‘Claudius displays every sign of being an excellent diplomatist and king.’ + he is a ‘good and gentle king’

Claudius’s evil nature - L.C. Knights

Claudius is shown as a ‘slimy beast’ and ‘something repulsive’

Gertrude as morally innocent but intellectually weak - A. C. Bradley

‘The Queen was not a bad hearted woman, not at all the woman to think little of murder, but she had a soft animal nature, and was very dull and shallow.’

Polonius + Laertes’s advice giving - Peter Mercer

‘Certainly this family is much addicted to the giving of earnest advice.’

Ophelia’s innocence + goodness - Anna Brownell Jameson

‘O far too soft, too good, too fair, to be cast among the briars of the working day world, and fall and bleed upon the thorns of life!’