Hamlet AO5 - critics

T.S. Elliot

T.S. Elliot

"The opening of Hamlet is as well constructed an opening as that of any play ever written"

Aristotle

"The aim of tragedy is to arouse sensations of pity and fear"

Knight (about Claudius)

"Claudius shows every sign of being an excellent diplomat and king."

Rogers

"In Shakespeare's society, the ideal female is cherished for her youth, beauty and purity."

Showalter (about Ophelia)

"Ophelia is deprived of thought, sexuality and language"

Hazlitt (about Hamlet)

"Hamlet seems incapable of deliberate action"

Bradley (about Hamlet)

"Hamlet's delay is due to a state of mind quite abnormal and induced by special circumstances - a form of melancholy"

Edwards (about Ophelia)

"We can imagine Hamlet's story without Ophelia, but Ophelia literally has no story without Hamlet."

Knight (about Hamlet)

"Hamlet is in fact the poison in the veins of the community"

Mabillard (about Claudius)

"Claudius is not a monster, he is morally weak"

Arnold (about Claudius)

"Claudius' soliloquy gives the impression of rhetorical pageantry rather than sincere contrition"

Sigmund Freud (about Hamlet)

Sigmund Freud, a psychologist, suggests that Hamlet has an unconscious desire to sexually enjoy his mother. This links to a theory he created, the 'Oedipus Complex', which suggests that all men unconsciously desire their mothers in a romantic manner. The theory was named after Oedipus, a character in Sophocles' play who has no knowledge about his parentage, murders his father and has multiple children with his mother.

Wilson (about the ghost)

"The ghost is the linchpin of Hamlet; remove it and the play falls to pieces."

Muir (about Gertrude)

"Gertrude is a moral defective."

Charney (about Ophelia)

"Through madness, Ophelia suddenly makes a forceful assertion of her being."

Showalter (about Hamlet and Ophelia)

"Hamlet's madness is associated with intellectual and imaginative genius, but Ophelia's affliction is erotomania or love-madness."

Mack (about Ophelia)

"Ophelia, mad, is able to make awards of flowers to the King and Queen which are appropriate to frailties of which she cannot be supposed to have conscious knowledge."

Prosser (about Laertes)

"Laertes is like a hurricane. He rushes into the palace in an uncontrolled rage, roaring for blood"

Delvin (about Laertes)

"Laertes is clearly less experienced in dishonour than Claudius"

Mack (about Hamlet)

"In the final act, Hamlet accepts his world and we discover a different man."

Frye (about Hamlet)

"Hamlet is a tragedy without catharsis in which everything noble and heroic is smothered under ferocious revenge codes, treachery, spying and the consequences of weak actions by broken wills."

Von Goethe

“All duties seem holy to Hamlet”

Johnson

“Hamlet is rather an instrument rather than an agent”

Bradley

“Hamlet is a tragedy of thought”

Leverenz

“Hamlet’s disgust at the feminine passivity in himself is translated into violent revulsion against women and into his brutal behaviour towards Ophelia.”

Dusinberre

“Ophelia is stifled by the authority of the male world”

Smith

“Gertrude has not moved in the play towards independence or a moral stance”

Kerrigan

Hamlet never promises to revenge, only to remember