Changing critical views over time Flashcards
What does Peter Hall mean when he claims that “Hamlet is a mirror which gives back the reflections of the age which is contemplating it”. Choose the statement which fits best.
- The play Hamlet reveals a universal, timeless truth about humanity.
- Hamlet reveals truths about power and spiritual uncertainty in late C16th England
- The meaning of the play is dependent on the time and place it is performed or discussed.
- Hamlet is a play which plays with reality versus illusion.
The meaning of the play is dependent on the time and place it is performed or discussed.
What was Francis Bacon’s view of revenge?
It is a type of justice which was morally unjustifiable in a modern state.
Choose the answer which fits best. Why did Samuel Johnson claim that Hamlet was ‘an instrument, rather than an agent’? Was it because…
… Hamlet was an instrument of god in dispensing justice?
… Hamlet was more successful as a philosophical thinker rather than an avenging hero.
… Hamlet’s revenge was the more the result of accident, rather than intention?
… Hamlet’s revenge was successful not because he was a clever spy, but because he was following his father’s commandment?
… Hamlet’s revenge was the more the result of accident, rather than intention?
C18th and C19th Romantic poets and critics admired Hamlet because…
He is the epitome of the Romantic hero - troubled by consciousness and imagination.
According to Schlegel, what does Hamlet’s ‘burden of revenge” do?
It cripples his ability to think.
What did AC Bradley see as Hamlet’s fatal flaw or hamartia?
His excessive reflectiveness and melancholy
Why did later critics disagree with Bradley’s approach to interpreting Hamlet?
.. he discussed Hamlet as a person, not a fictional construct within a C16th play
Which answer is NOT correct? Ernest Jones’ interpretation of Hamlet was …
… shaped by Hamlet’s fixation on his mother’s sexuality.
… influenced by Freudian psychoanalysis, specifically the Oedipal complex.
… shaped by Laurence Olivier’s film adaptation.
… influenced by the notion of repressed desire lurking under the surface of the mind.
It was the other way round: Ernest Jones’ essay influenced Olivier’s production.
Olivier’s 1948 film adaptation …
Olivier dispensed with Fortinbras’ character and focused on Hamlet’s inner troubles, not the wider political power play.
Whose assumption - that Hamlet is representative of unchanging human nature - does Catherine Belsey contradict?
A C Bradley’s.
Graham Holderness argued that we should see Hamlet from a historical perspective. According to Holderness, what is Hamlet caught between?
the feudal world and a modern one.
According to Lisa Jardine, past interpretations of the play have often…
… blamed Gertrude for her sexual desires because Hamlet does, i.e. seeing her through a patriarchal mindset.
What was full title of the play, in early editions of Hamlet?
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
Emma Smith challenges the idea that the play has a universal appeal to all, claiming that “fewer female readers than male readers have had a smack of Hamlet themselves”. Who originally claimed that they “have a smack of Hamlet myself”?
S T Coleridge
Which aspect of the play became iconic in the eyes of Victorian audiences ?
Ophelia’s suicide and her associations with the Victorian taboo of the ‘fallen woman’ (figure of sexual disgrace)
