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’
