Critics Flashcards
T.S Elliot
‘The opening scene of Hamlet is as well constructed as that of any play ever written’
Aristotle
‘The aim of tragedy is to arouse sensations of pity and fear’
Knight
‘Claudius shows every sign of being an excellent diplomat and King’
Showalter
-‘Ophelia is deprived of thought, sexuality and language’
-‘Hamlet’s madness is associated with intellectual and imaginative genius’
Rogers
‘In Shakespeare’s society, the ideal female is cherished for her youth, beauty and purity’
McGrory
‘women are either innocent maiden saints or loathsome sinners’
Van Goethe
‘All duties seem holy to Hamlet’
Johnson
‘Hamlet is rather an instrument than an agent’
Mack
-‘Hamlet can be privileged in madness to say things about the corruption of human nature’
-‘In the final act, Hamlet accepts his world and we discover a better man.’
Hazlitt
‘Hamlet seems incapable of deliberate action’
Bradley
-‘Hamlet’s delay is due to a form of melancholy’
-‘Hamlet is a tragedy of thought’
Swinbourne
-‘The single characteristic of Hamlet’s character is by no means hesitation but the strong conflux of contending forces’
-‘Hamlet’s disgust at the feminine passivity in himself is translated into violent revulsion against women’
Edwards
‘We can imagine Hamlet’s story without Ophelia, but Ophelia literally has no story without Hamlet’
Mabillard
‘Claudius is not a monster, he is morally weak’
Arnold
‘Claudius’s soliloquy gives the impression of rhetorical pageantry rather than sincere contrition.’
Muir
‘Gertrude is a moral defective’
Wilson
‘The ghost is the linchpin of Hamlet.’
Charney
‘Through madness, Ophelia suddenly makes a forceful assertion of her being.’
Prosser
‘Laertes is like a hurricane’
Kerrigan
‘Ophelia is a lesser we have never really known’
Frye
‘Hamlet is a tragedy without catharsis’
O’Toole
‘Hamlet poses great problems for the tragic hero theory because he is patently not a hero’
