Denmark & Succession

Question 1

Philip Edwards, on Denmark and Hamlet

Answer 1

“ Hamlet is about Denmark as well as its prints. How Denmark fares as a society is in our minds all the time. “

Question 2

Philip Edwards, on Denmark’s Monarchy

Answer 2

“ Shakespeare plays off [Denmark’s] elective monarchy against his Elizabethan audiences’s deep emotional commitment to primogeniture and the right of a son to inherit… For the audience, the system is a legalism which runs counter to their instinctive sense of rightness. “

Question 3

Mumford Jones on Claudius & his crime

Answer 3

“a shrewd leader of men, every inch a king, the salvation of Denmark, an accomplished diplomat, the man for the place and the hour; but his career is founded upon private crime, and although from such a crime innumerable benefits flow, it remains a crime to the end.”