hamlet critics

Bradley - we are meant in the play to assume

that he ought to have obeyed the Ghost

Smith - in sharing a name, father and son cannot be entirely distinguished:

young Hamlet cannot form an autonomous identity for himself

Von Goethe - It is clear to me what Shakespeare has set out to portray: a heavy deed placed on a soul

which is not adequate to cope with it

Von Goethe - a heavy deed

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

Coleridge - Hamlet’s delay, and ultimately his downfall,

is caused by too much thinking

Coleridge - we see a great, an almost enormous, intellectual activity,

and a proportionate aversion to real action consequent upon it

Bradley - Hamlet suffers from the tragic and melancholy recognition of our finite human condition -

though our souls may be infinite, our bodies are mortal

Bradley - Hamlet suffers from the

tragic and melancholy recognition of our finite human condition

Bradley - though our souls may be infinite,

our bodies are mortal

Smith - modern man captured

in the process of emotional and intellectual formation

Smith - Hamlet’s soliloquies have come to represent the

ultimate articulation of a fraught, reflective consciousness

Smith - Hamlet’s soliloquies have come to represent the ultimate articulation of a fraught, reflective consciousness:

modern man captured in the process of emotional and intellectual formation

Lewes - there is as much reflection

as action in it

Lewes - it may indeed be called the tragedy of thought,

for there is as much reflection as action in it

Wilson - The attitude of Hamlet towards Ophelia is

without doubt the greatest of all the puzzles in the play

Wilson - the play scene is the central point of Hamlet

it is the climax and crisis of the whole drama