Hamlet critical views

McGuiness (20th C) - Ophelia, madness, rebellion

“it is not her weakness that impels her to suicide but her intelligence“

A C Bradley - Ophelia, femininity, submission

“her whole character is that of simply unselfish affection“

Toshiko (20thC) - Ophelia, femininity, power

she has an “inability to express herself by means of words“

Erlich (1977) - sexuality, gender expectations

“Hamlet is a play about a father and a son who were weak because they were undone by sexually treacherous women“

Thomas Browne (1642) - ghosts, devil

“ghosts of departed are not the wandering souls of men but the unquiet walks of devils, prompting and suggesting us into mischief, blood and villainy“

Thomas Nash (1594) - supernatural, religion

the devil would often adopt the form of a dead father to incite evil

John Dover Wilson (1935) - ghost, supernatural, appearance

“we are never perfectly certain as to just who or what the ghost is“

Liscence (21stC) - Ophelia’s death, morality

“to a modern audience, it is the pathos of Ophelia’s death that matters, not the coroner’s verdict, but to Shakespeare’s audience it was the difference between heaven and hell“

Flint - Hamlet, langaugue

“Hamlet’s madness gives him the license of a fool to speak cruel truths, transgressing the languague of social decorum“

Showalter (20thC) - Ophelia, power

“Ophelia is deprived of thought, sexuality and langauge“

Rebecca Smith - Gertrude, power

“Gertrude has not moved in the play toward indpendence or a moral stance“

Jaqueline Rose (20thC) - female sexuality, stability

“Hamlet’s anguish is a product of the revelation of the essential but destabilising function of female sexuality in a patriarchal society“

Wilson Knight (early 20thC) - corruption, decay, Hamlet

“[Hamlet] is in fact the poison in the veins of the community“

Hazlitt (1838) - Hamlet, hero vs villain

“Hamlet is as little of the hero as a man can be“

Hazlitt (1817) - Hamlet, revenge

“because he cannot have his revenge perfect…he declines it altogether“

Leverenz (1978) - Ophelia, relationships

Ophelia “is valued only for the roles that further other people’s plots“

Clare Gunn - Gertrude, power dynamics

“Gertrude retains her power by her very presence onstage“

Bloom - Hamlet, identity

“the hero-villain“

Belsey (1979) - revenge, crime

“revenge exists on a margin between justice and crime“

Schlegel (1808) - Hamlet, belief

“Hamlet has no firm belief either in himself or anything else“

Schlegel (1808) - melancholy, Hamlet

Hamlet is “too much overwhelmed with his own sorrow to have any compassion to spare for others“

Kott (1964) - politics, power

“Hamlet is mad because politics itself is madness when it destroys all feeling and affection“

McGuiness - corrpution, Gertrude and Ophelia

“the queen too will die from liquid, and just as ophelia’s mind is poisoned by intrigue, gertrude’s body shall consume the same poison“

Showalter (20thC) - Ophelia, control, fear

ophelia is “a girl terrified of her father, her lover, and of life itself“

Branagh (1996) - gertrude, victim

gertrude is “an honest dynastic pawn, a victim“

Hunt - revenge, villainy

“in order to act the part of the revenger, he must become the bloody villain himself“

Johnson (1765) - polonius, power

“polonius’ mind was once strong, and knows not that it has become weak“

Limmer - rosencrantz and guildenstern

“rosencrantz and guildenstern cannot be true friends to hamlet because there are two of them“

Smith - Ophelia, gender roles, submission

“her only concern is pleasing others“

Gardiner - Hamlet, expectations

“hamlet’s tragedy is that he ends by accepting the standards of behaviour his better nature rejects“

Taylor Coleridge (1818) - Hamlet, death, victim

hamlet “dies the victim of mere circumstance and accident“

Austen (late 20thC) - Hamlet, action vs inaction

“[hamlet’s] purpose is blunted by an inability to act“

Nietzche (1872) - hamlet, indecision

hamlet “thinks too deeply“

Edwards - Ophelia and Hamlet

“we can imagine hamlet’s story without ophelia, but ophelia literally has no story without hamlet“

Gardiner - elsinore, prison

“the world of hamlet is a remarkably enclosed one“

G Wilson Knight (1930) - death, corruption

“from the first scene to the last a shadow of death broods over this play“

Goodman (1996) - Ophelia, madness, beauty

“Ophelia…is usually portrayed as beautiful, pathetic and seductive“

Showalter (1985) - ophelia, feminist view

“the madwoman is a heroine who rebels against gender stereotypes and the social order, at enormous cost“

Clara Gunns (2019) - gertrude, roles

“the dual roles of queen and mother begin to become problematic for gertrude“

Ernest Jones (1949) - foils, revenge

“in reality his uncle incorporates the deepest and most buried part of his own personality, so that he cannot kill him without killing himself“

Gardiner - Fortinbras

“fortinbras coming to power does not mark a radical alteration in the ethos of Denmark; it remains a society in which the qualities we most admire in hamlet have no place“

Hazlitt (1810s) - hamlet, gender expectations

“his conduct to ophelia is quite natural in the circumstances“

G Wilson Knight (1930) - hamlet, power, body politic

“hamlet is a danger to the state“

Vardy - politics, family

“power and politics evidently trump family values in claudius’ denmark“

Johnson (1765) - hamlet, power, authority

“hamlet is, throughout the whole play, an instrument rather than an agent“

Josipovici (20thC) - theatre

“hamlet’s suffering and behaviour stem from the fact that he cannot find a play to be part of“

Coleridge (1819) - hamlet, inaction

“hamlet is brave and careless of death; but he vacates from sensibility, and procrastinates from thought, and loses the power of action in the energy of resolve“

Hazlitt (1820) - ophelia, pathos

“her love, her madness, her death, are described with the truest touches of tenderness and pathos“

Coleridge (1819) - hamlet’s melancholy

taedium vitae: weariness of life

Coleridge (1819) - hamlet and polonius

“hamlet’s mind is the logical contrary to that of polonius“

Mrs Jameson (1832) - ophelia, beauty

“ophelia is so exquisitely delicate, it seems as if a touch would profane it, so sanctified in our thoughts by the last and worst of human woes, that we scarcely care to consider it too deeply“

Mrs Jameson (1832) - hamlet, ophelia, love

“while no one entertains a doubt of ophelia’s love for hamlet…it is a subject of dispute whether hamlet loves ophelia“

Mrs Jameson (1832) - ophelia’s madness

“ophelia’s madness is not the suspension, but the utter destruction of the reasoning powers; it is the total imbecility which follows some terrible shock to the system“

Johnson (1765) - hamlet, madness, performance

“he is to personate madness“

Johnson (1765) - hamlet’s treatment of ophelia

“hamlet plays the madman most, when he treats ophelia with so much rudeness, which seems to be useless and wanton cruelty“

Goethe (1765) - hamlet, duty

“a heavy deed placed on a soul which is not adequate to cope with it“

Schlegel (1809) - hamlet, duty, inaction

the burden that hamlet faces “cripples the power of thought“

T.S. Elliot (20thC) - hamlet, gertrude

“hamlet is up against the difficulty that his disgust is occasioned by his mother, but that his mother is not an adequate equivalent for it“

T.S. Elliot (20thC) - hamlet, emotion

“hamlet is dominated by an emotion which is inexpressible, because it is in excess of the facts as they appear“

Johnson (1765) - hamlet, revenge

“the revenge which hamlet demands is not obtained but by the death of him that was required to take it“

Goethe (1765) - hamlet, heroism

“hamlet is pure, noble and of the most moral nature“

Johnson (175) - hamlet, madness, comedy

“the pretended madness of hamlet causes much mirth“

Showalter (2016) - ophelia, madness

“19thC psychiatrists used ophelia as a case study in hysteria and mental breakdown in sexually turbulent adolescence“

Gardiner - threat, society, fortinbras

“from the opening scene [we are introduced] to a society heavily fortified from attack from without“

G Wilson Knight - Claudius, morality

“claudius is a good and gentle king…who can hardly be blamed for his actions“

Gardiner - Fortinbras, power

Fortinbras coming to power is a “triumph of mediocrity“

Hartley Coleridge (1828) - hamlet, inaction

“by natural temperament he is more of a thinker than a doer“

S.T. Coleridge - hamlet, inaction, purpose

“in resolving to everything he does nothing“

Hazlitt (1817) - polonius, fool

“polonius is not a fool but makes himself such“

Samuel Johnson (1765) - polonius, status

polonius is “a man bred in courts“

Hazlitt (1817) - hamlet, audience

“it is we who are hamlet“

Goethe (1795) - action vs inaction

“the effects of a great action laid upon a soul unfit for the performance of it“

Johnson (1765) - ophelia, madness, pathos

“the mournful distraction of ophelia fills the heart with tenderness“