Critics + Quotes Flashcards
“The opening scene of Hamlet is as well constructed as that of any play ever written” - T. S. Eliot
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“Who’s there?” - first words craft a dramatic atmosphere and foreshadow ambiguity
“strange eruption” - foreboding for corruption later in the play
“guilty thing upon a fearful summons” - establishes ambiguity
SETS THEMES THAT CARRY THROUGHOUT
“The aim of tragedy is to arouse sensations of PITY and fear” - Aristotle
Link to Hamlet’s death/mistreatment
“self-slaughter” - alone in his grief
“pigeon liver’d and lack gall” - unable to complete his duty
‘Too too sullied flesh would melt’
“The aim of tragedy is to arouse sensations of pity and FEAR” - Aristotle
“it bodes some strange eruption to our state” - death impending in Denmark
“it harrows me with fear and wonder” - Reaction to the supernatural - untrustworthy
“Claudius shows every sign of being an excellent diplomat and King” - Knight
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“our hearts in grief” - unites the royal court - include asking Polonius
“so much for him” (Branagh 1996, rips the letter) - not threatened, impose stability
“auspicious and a dropping eye” - balanced
iambic pentameter - reasoned
“Claudius shows every sign of being an excellent diplomat and King” - Knight
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Iambic pentameter - formulaic and not genuine, Machiavellian character?
“auspicious” - lack of grief - link to BP
“Ophelia is deprived of thought, SEXUALITY and language” - Showalter
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“fear it, Ophelia, fear it” - loss of purity is damaging to a female’s reputation, and so her family (harder to marry off)
Commodification of purity “chaste treasures” “taken these tenders for true pay”
“Ophelia is deprived of THOUGHT, sexuality and LANGUAGE” - Showalter
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“think yourself a baby” “pretty” - belittled and infantilized by male figures
Banned from being able to “give words or talk with the lord Hamlet” - restriction of her actions and autonomy
compare “do not understand yourself” to “to thine own self be true” - double standard of men and women
“women are either maiden saints or loathsome sinners, and the deciding factor is nearly always sex” - McGrory
SUPPORT - OPHELIA
“I shall obey, my lord.” - Ophelia’s obedience to her father, comment on structure.
“chaste treasure” - valued for her purity
“Let in the maid, that out a maid Never departed more”
“women are either maiden saints or loathsome sinners, and the deciding factor is nearly always sex” - McGrory
SUPPORT - GERTRUDE
Transforms at the end - sacrifice and repentance “my lord” redeems her in death
Beginning: “a beast that wants discourse of reason…” “post with such dexterity to incestuous sheets”
“Ophelia is deprived of THOUGHT, sexuality and LANGUAGE” - Showalter
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Madness gives her freedom
“pray you mark” “dangerous conjectures” “columbines” (represent deception and infidelity) - comments on corruption and freely speaks. Extremely verbose, dominates dialogue in comparison to previous scenes
“all duties seem holy to Hamlet” - Van Goethe
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“a serpent stung me” - Claudius as unholy (serpent in garden of Eden) makes Hamlet’s opposition to him holy in comparison.
“thy commandment” - filial obligation, deifies his father (link to “Hyperion” and “Hercules”)
“Hamlet is rather an instrument than an agent” - Johnson
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“I am bound to hear” - filial responsibility, Hamlet’s action is the bidding of his father (“thy commandment”)
Ghost speaks most in the scene - dominance
“Hamlet can be privileged in madness to say things about the corruption of human behaviour” - Mack
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“fishmonger” “to be honest… is to be one man/picked out of ten thousand” - Hamlet uses madness as an excuse to criticise Polonius and the dishonesty of Denmark as a whole.
“I am but mad north-north-west”
“Hamlet seems incapable of deliberate action” - Hazlitt
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“unpregnant of my cause” “must like a whore unpack my heart with words” - laments his inaction/overthinking
“the native hue of resolution is sicklied o’er by the pale cast of thought” - Hamlet’s inaction is a source of failure to him
“Hamlet seems incapable of deliberate action” - Hazlitt
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Only a lack if one considers inaction to be medieval (violent) rather than renaissance (logic - plots to give an “antic disposition” and “catch the conscience of the king”)
“Hamlet’s delay is due to… a form of melancholy” - Bradley
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“the native hue of resolution is sicklied o’er by the pale cast of thought” “I am pigeon livered and lack gall”
“to my shame”
“Hamlet’s delay is due to… a form of melancholy” - Bradley
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overthinking and logic “I, his sole son, do this same villain send to heaven”
“antic-disposition”
“The single characteristic of Hamlet’s character is by no means hesitation bit the strong conflux of contending forces” - Swinbourne
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Medieval vs renaissance mindset
“pigeon liver’d and lack gall”
“unpregnant of my cause” - purpose of an avenging prince
“a rogue and peasant slave”
“Hamlet is a tragedy of thought” - Bradley
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“To be or not to be, that is the question” - parallel phrasing, debating death
“like a whore unpack my heart with words”
“We can imagine Hamlet’s story without Ophelia, but Ophelia literally has no story without Hamlet” - Edwards
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“a fruit to that great feast”
Objectified in response to her relationship to Hamlet, Her fear is a result of Hamlet “affrighted” + madness (murdered Polonius)
“I have heard of your paintings”
EVEN IN HER MADNESS “let in the maid that out a maid never departed more”
“We can imagine Hamlet’s story without Ophelia, but Ophelia literally has no story without Hamlet” - Edwards
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Her madness seems independent of Hamlet “pray you mark”
“Hamlet’s disgust at the feminine passivity in himself is translated into violent revulsion against women” - Swinbourne
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“like a whore…” “unpregnant” - Feminine descriptions of himself to comment on inaction - degrading.
Ophelia - “Get thee to a nunnery” (pun, prostitute or enforcement of purity) “bawd” “paintings” (deception)
Gertrude - “beast” “incestuous sheets”
“Hamlet’s disgust at the feminine passivity in himself is translated into violent revulsion against women” - Swinbourne
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simply a result of patriarchal ideas
“Claudius is not a monster, he is morally weak” - Mabillard
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Branagh version - confession booth
3.3 Soliloquy
“bosom black as death” - aware of his corruption and wishes for improvement “wash it white as snow”
but “heart with strings of steel”, struggle to repent
“Claudius is not a monster, he is morally weak” - Mabillard
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Tennant version (smirk)
3.3 soliloquy
“heart with strings of steel” “my crown, mine own ambition, and my queen” Unrepentant and unable to give up his desires “to double business bound” - lies to God in seeking repentance but not letting go
“Claudius’ soliloquy gives the impression of rhetorical pageantry rather than sincere contrition” - Arnold
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Not genuine.
“words fly up, my thoughts remain below” “heart with strings of steel”
“throughout the play, the covert drama of reformation vies for priority with overt drama of revenge” - Adelman
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Claudius’ soliloquy
Gertrude “I pray you pardon me” - redemption at the end
“Gertrude is a moral defective” - Muir
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Guilt - “speak no more/These words like daggers enter in my ears” “The lady doth protest too much”
“The ghost is the linchpin of Hamlet” - Wilson
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“sweep to my revenge” and “antic disposition” suggested by the ghost (filial responsibility)
Causes reconciliation w/ Gertrude “leave her to heaven”
“The ghost is the linchpin of Hamlet” - Wilson
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The incest was an issue before Ghost’s presence “incestuous sheets” “Hyperion to a satyr” WAS ALWAYS TENSION - psychologically complex
“Through madness Ophelia suddenly makes a forceful assertion of her being” - Charney
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“columbines” and loss of “violets” - comments on corruption of the court
“dangerous conjectures”
“pray you mark” and is most verbose in scene - heard (contrast to “I shall obey” and “think yourself a baby”)
“Hamlet’s madness is associated with intellectual and imaginative genius, but Ophelia’s affliction is erotomania or love-madness” (Showalter)
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Ophelia comments on “dangerous conjectures”
Hamlet - Cowardly “His madness is poor Hamlet’s enemy” “Lack gall”
“Laertes is like a hurricane. He rushes into the palace in an uncontrolled rage, roaring for blood” - Prosser
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“Enter Laertes with followers”
“I dare damnation”
“That drop of blood that’s calm proclaims me a Bastard”
Laertes’ rage is a foil to Hamlet’s passivity
Ophelia is a “lesser we have never really known” - Kerrigan
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Even in death she gains no identity “Mermaid-like” “creature native and indued”
“In the final act, Hamlet accepts his world and we discover a different man” - Mack
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Acceptance of death (less fear) - “undiscovered country” to “Imperious Caesar, dead and turn’d to clay” “returneth to dust”
“Hamlet is a tragedy without catharsis” - Frye
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Link to Aristotle “pity and fear” and Hamlet’s self-doubt (less heroic)
“Hamlet poses great problems for the tragic hero theory because he is patently not a hero” - O’Toole
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His own doubt “lack gall” “rogue and a peasant slave”
“Hamlet poses great problems for the tragic hero theory because he is patently not a hero” - O’Toole
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Restores order (genre needs a rule - YF)
Redeems his mother and kills Claudius “like a soldier” “prov’d most royal” - becomes a hero in death
