AO5: Critics Flashcards
Appearance Vs Reality
Spaeth: Hamlet is a different person in different situations - his words and actions are intended to conceal his true self
Fate
A.C Bradley: “love, remorse and grief are the same in a peasant as a king”
Monarchy
Knight: Claudius is a good and gentle king, enmeshed by the chain of causality linking him with his crime
Love
Dawson: Claudius loved Gertrude deeply and genuinely
Madness
Wilde: Hamlet uses madness to mask his weakness
Villainy
Sagar: Claudius’ first speech is ‘the language of a hypocrite and a villain’
Women
Leverenz: hamlet’s disgust at the feminine passivity in himself is translated into violent revulsion against women and into his brutal behaviour towards Ophelia
family:
Jones: Claudius has fulfilled precisely Hamlet’s own Oedipal fantasies
Setting:
Marret: Suicide as a way to escape the corruption of Denmark
Supernatural:
Wilson: ‘The ghost is the linchpin of Hamlet, remove it, and the whole play falls to pieces’
Religion:
Goethe: All duties seem holy for Hamlet
Revenge:
Kitteredge: Laertes is the typical avenger
Masculinity:
Belsey: Hamlets hesitation was regarded as feminine
Corruption:
Scofield: Claudius is morally empty
Death:
Smith: ‘Hamlet really is a play of the undead’ ‘his strongest affections are towards the dead’
Friendship:
Limmer: ‘True friendship in the Renaissance ideal was understood to result from the free choice of an individual, as opposed to being a pre-existing family or political relationship.’
Loyalty:
Belsey: Elizabethan audiences would’ve regarded Hamlet with “ambivalence” because paternal loyalty was important and you should murder a bad king
Betrayal:
David: argues R+G are ‘A pair of faceless automatons’
Comedy:
Snyder: ‘Comedy is the ground from which… tragedy develops’
