Hamlet Flashcards
AO5: Opening of the Branagh 1996 version
- 12 church bells ring, set in darkness, fast paced sudden speech = dramatic, ominous, tense atmosphere
AO5: Emma Smith on the play opening with a question
- sets the tone for “insistent questioning of ideas of identity and recognition throughout the rest of the play”
AO5: Richard Gill on Act 1.1
“Soldiers do something fundamental to the play: they ask questions […] questions are only asked when people are uncertain; this is the world of Hamlet”
AO5: Comparison between 2016 and 1996 version’s portrayal of relationship between Polonius and Ophelia
- 2016 RSC version = much more lighthearted and humorous relationship between the two
- 1996 Branagh version = more coercive and controlling relationship (physical violence) , Ophelia in a strait jacket
AO5: Cara Rutter on Ophelia
“Ophelia has been bullied [and] betrayed by every person in the play”
AO5: Elaine Showalter on Ophelia
“Ophelia is deprived of thought, sexuality and language” - contemporary audience however saw her as merely embodying expectations of the time
AO5: Lisa Jardine on the burden of guilt
- questioned why critics were so quick to place ‘burden of guilt’ on Gertrude and present Hamlet as the ‘blameless hero’
AO5: Lamb on Hamlet
- sees Hamlet as “uncomfortable” with his role of revenge hero
AO5: Foakes on Hamlet’s procrastination
- described Hamlet’s procrastinating intellect as “Hamletism”
AO5: Benedict Cumberbatch (2015 version) on Hamlet’s soliloquies
- interprets Hamlet’s soliloquies as a “conversation with different synapses in his brain”
AO5: Wilhen Bon Schlegel on Hamlet’s inaction
- Hamlet loses himself in “a labyrinth of thought that cripple him from taking action”
AO5: Sertin vs Alice Morgan’s opposing views on loyalty
- Sertin views Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as a “pair of faceless autonomes”
- Morgan views that they acted out of “pure friendship”
AO5: Terry Edgerton (Marxist critic) on Hamlet
- Hamlet resists playing the roles society expects of him “unable to find self definition”
