Hamlet

Question 1

Act 1, Scene 1: “oh that this too, too solid flesh would melt…

Answer 1

or that the everlasting had not fix’d his canon gainst’ self-slaughter”

Question 2

Act 1, Scene 1: “Frailty…

Answer 2

thy name is woman”

Question 3

1.2 “you speak like a green…

Answer 3

girl…do you believe his tenders as you call them”

Question 4

ST Coleridge on inactivity

Answer 4

Hamlet is bound by his morality and by his religion.’

Question 5

Wilde on madness

Answer 5

Hamlet uses madness to mask his weakness

Question 6

Duncan Spaeth on A v R: ‘

Answer 6

Hamlet is a different person in different situations - his words and actions are intended to conceal his true self.’

Question 7

Elaine Showalter on Ophelia

Answer 7

Ophelia’s tragedy is treated as subordinate to Hamlet’s.’

Question 8

AC Bradley on Gertrude:

Answer 8

‘Gertrude’s social depravity is to blame for Hamlet’s melancholy.’

Question 9

J.H. Walter on Polonius

Answer 9

‘Cold-heart devil’

Question 10

Maki on Ophelia’s death:

Answer 10

‘Her death is tragic because the only escape she sees from her oppression is madness and death.’

Question 11

T.S. Eliot on Oedipus Complex.

Answer 11

‘Hamlet is gripped by an Oedipus complex, which obstructs his action.’ This is depicted in Lawrence Olivier’s 1948 psychosexual interpretation.

Question 12

Kiernan Ryan (21st-century critic):

Answer 12

Hamlet “sabotages the revenge-play formula.”

Question 13

Eleanor Prosser, 20th Century

Answer 13

believes that Laertes embodies the true avenger: ‘he defies his conscience and his God’.