Critical perspectives Flashcards
Adelman ‘to free the masculine identity
‘to free the masculine identity of both the father and son from its origin in the contaminated female body’
Adelman ‘if the father’s death
‘if the father’s death leads to the mother’s sexualised body, the mother’s sexualised body leads to the father’s death’
Psychoanalytical Freudian reading of Oedipal complex
Prevents him from taking his revenge because he can identify with his uncle’s crimes - desires to kill his father and sleep with his mother
Ryan an ‘antic disposition [is]
‘antic disposition [is] the only sane response to an insane predicament in a society that no longer makes sense’
Ryan on Hamlet’s role in the revenge drama
‘miscast’ as a ‘revenge hero’
A.C. Bradley’s theory of tragedy in relation to Hamlet
Man is the agent of tragedy - character actions firmly linked to their downfalls i.e. Hamlet not killing Claudius praying, Ophelia’s lie, Polonius’ plotting etc.
Hegel’s theory of tragedy in relation to Hamlet
Tragic protagonist is estranged from their complete self, feels isolated and insufficient due to his divided nature
Hamlet and social order - usurped from role by Claudius, death of father sees death of patriarchy, father’s death means loss of certainty in life
Camus’ ‘Lyrical and Critical’ tragic theory
Existentialist - ‘the tragic age always seems to coincide with an evolution in which man, consciously or not, frees himself from an older order of civilisation and finds that he has broken away from it without having found a new form that satisfies him’
Questions feudal hierarchy, relates to grave diggers, rejects role as revenge hero as sees how this will not solve larger problem of society,
Kierkegaard’s existentialism in relation to Hamlet
It is entirely up to the individual to give meaning to life
‘for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so’
Levina - Hamlet embodies
Hamlet embodies the ‘intellectual struggle’ of Jacobean society
Ilkay - Hamlet is an existentialist hero because
Hamlet is an existentialist hero because he ‘emod[ies] three main existentialist principles - alienation, the search for meaning in a meaningless world, and the universality and certainty of death’
Tekinay on Horatio’s relationship to Hamlet
Horatio is Hamlet’s ‘alter-ego’
Ilkay on the end of Hamlet’s final soliloquy comparing himself to Fortinbras
‘imposes principle onto his own life’
Ilkay ‘Hamlet ultimately fulfills his quest
Ilkay ‘Hamlet ultimately fulfills his quest… to reestablish the natural order, by killing Claudius’
Ilkay on Hamlet’s insistence that Horatio ‘report me and my cause aright, to the unsatisfied’
Hamlet ‘reveals a desire for objective meaning’
Ilkay ‘Hamlet embodies the struggle of
‘Hamlet embodies the struggle of Sisyphus… the search for meaning in a meaningless world rife with absurdity and corruption’
Ilkay ‘In Act 5, Hamlet has
‘In Act 5, Hamlet has abandoned the idea of an afterlife and is resigned to the finality of death’
Ilkay on “If it be now, ‘tis / not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it/ be not now, yet it will come… Let be’
‘Hamlet’s words reveal a Camusian indifference’
Tekinay ‘Hamlet puts on an antic disposition
‘Hamlet puts on an antic disposition and alienates his authentic self from the mass’
Berry - Hamlet’s ‘abrupt retreat from social intercourse
Hamlet’s ‘abrupt retreat from social intercourse is not only signaled in his mourning dress but through an intensely satiric relationship to language’
Frye - In his speech to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Hamlet’s paradoxical awareness of
Hamlet’s paradoxical awareness of the ‘infinite possibilities inherent… in being human and conscious’ but also ‘that to be a finite human being is to be in some sense a prisoner’
Frye - Hamlet’s bleak description of the world
Shows a ‘melancholy sense of the unbearable loathsomeness of physical life’
Holbrook ‘despite having seen through the fictions of the world
Holbrook ‘despite having seen through the fictions of the world to the bitter truth of its chaos and meaningless… [Hamlet] does not succumb to nihilism’
Bloom - faced with the finality of death, he needs someone to
Faced with the finality of death, he needs someone to ‘give honour and meaning to his death’
Tekinay ‘Hamlet is the model of
‘Hamlet is the model of the existentialist man who lives in a symbolic exile, alienated from others’
Russel - Hamlet ‘accepts death
Hamlet ‘accepts death as an integral part of the process of life’
Showalter ‘Gertrude’s speech turns Ophelia into
‘Gertrude’s speech turns Ophelia into a “beautiful nothing”
Kermode ‘Shakespeare was obsessed with
‘Shakespeare was obsessed with doubles’
Jeff and Lynn Wood “Hamlet was produced at a time of
“Hamlet was produced at a time of unprecedented ferment; of political and religious controversy’
Starks ‘a text that supports
‘a text that supports the dominant fiction of the Oedipal fantasy’
Kiernan ‘points away from
‘points away from monarchism, though not towards any alternative’
Bloom on Hamlet’s moral status in the play
‘a hero-villain’
C.S. Lewis on the universality of Hamlet
‘not an individual but an everyman’
Kinnear - Hamlet is ‘simply
Hamlet is ‘simply the man that was put in an impossible situation’
Altick - Claudius’ ‘cunning and lecherousness has
Claudius’ ‘cunning and lecherousness has corrupted the whole kingdom of Denmark’
Knight’s positive spin on Claudius
‘good and gentle king’
Name of the common law detailing woman as property of their male relatives
‘femme couverture’
Bradley on Hamlet’s aim with Gertrude
‘Hamlet’s chief desire… is to save Gertrude’s soul’
Name of Irigaray’s theory of a ‘fluid female language’ separate from conventions of patriarchy which Grindlay ascribes to Ophelia
‘ecriture feminine’
Grindlay’s summary of Ophelia
‘Ophelia is nothing’
Lacan on role of Ophelia in plotting
Ophelia is a ‘piece of bait’
Montainge’s definition of the ‘everyman’
‘Every man has within himself the entire human condition’
Bushnell - early modern interest in revenge tragedy was
Early modern interest in revenge tragedy was ‘a symptom of a society in transition, where traditional forms of authority and the nature of law were being questioned’
Nietszech in relation to Hamlet
Hamlet sees the pointlessness of life, becomes a nihilist?
Tekinay - ‘It is Hamlet’s delay which
‘It is Hamlet’s delay which prevents him from descending to the moral level of his opponents’
Tekinay - In sparing Claudius as he prays, Hamlet ‘becomes
In sparing Claudius as he prays, Hamlet ‘becomes an executioner, not an assassin’
Tekinay - ‘the tragedy is not that of a man who cannot kill; the tragedy is that of
‘the tragedy is not that of a man who cannot kill; the tragedy is that of a sensitive man with an existential outlook on life’
Tekinay admires Hamlet for ‘his capacity to
Tekinay admires Hamlet for ‘his capacity to suffer moral anguish which moral responsibility brings’
Tekinay - Hamlet as a symbolic figure
‘Hamlet is the modern European man who struggles in a “rotten” world’
Tekinay on Hamlet’s return from Wittenburg to Denmark
Which theorist does this link to?
‘The young and idealistic student is in the real world now’ - ‘born into a new personality’
Links to Hegel’s theory of tragedy with incomplete sense of self in tragic hero
