Early Critisism

Question 1

George Buchanan - 1579 about tyranny

Answer 1

’ People would be in the right if they sought vengeance on an arrogant and worthless tyrant ‘

Question 2

John Evelyn - 1660 about reaction of audiences

Answer 2

’ Began to disgust this refined age’

Question 3

Jeremy collier - 1698 about Ophelia

Answer 3

’[ the depiction of Ophelia] lewd and unreasonable ‘

Question 4

James drake - 1699 about punishment

Answer 4

’ Everyone’s crime naturally produces his punishment ‘

Question 5

Thomas hanmer - 1736 about Hamlet

Answer 5

’ So inhuman, so unworthy of a hero ‘

Question 6

Samuel Johnson - 1765 about Hamlet

Answer 6

’ Rather an instrument than an agent ‘

Question 7

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe - 1795 about Hamlet

Answer 7

’ Power of direct action is paralysed by an excessive development of intellect’

Question 8

William Hazlitt - 1817 about Hamlet

Answer 8

’ Incapable of deliberate action and is only hurried into extremities on the Spur of the occasion when he has no time to reflect ‘
‘ Prince of philosophical speculators “

Question 9

Edgar Allan Poe - 1846 on Ophelia

Answer 9

’ The death of a beautiful woman is unquestionably the most poetic topic in the world “

Question 10

Friedrich Nietzsche - 1872 about Hamlet

Answer 10

’ Archetype of the violent and visionary ‘dionysiac’ man’