Hamlet AO5 Flashcards
Voltaire (1748)
“[Hamlet] is a vulgar and barbarous drama”
(Vulgertaire)
- Morality and corruption
Johnson (1765)
(John-strument):
“Hamlet is… rather an instrument than an agent”
- Victim of circumstances and the actions of other people
- He does not take control of his own fate
- Action vs Inaction, Morality and Revenge
Vining (1881)
“The charms of Hamlet’s mind are essentially feminine in nature”
- Tries to explain his inaction through gender stereotypes
- Role of Women, Action vs Inaction and Madness
Wilson Knight (1930)
(Wilson CCCCCnight / Wilson 5 C’s Knight):
“Claudius… is not a criminal. He is… a good and gentle king, enmeshed by the chain of causality linking with his crime”
- Claims Claudius is not the villain which he is often said to be
- Corruption, Morality and Appearance vs Reality
Clemen (1951)
(Clemen):
“Hamlet sees through men and things. He perceives what is false”
- Hamlet cannot be fooled and is a wise and honest man
- Appearance vs Reality
Mack (1952)
(Mackarras):
“Polonius is always either behind an arras or prying into one”
- Polonius spends his time spying or deceiving people he wants to manipulate
- Appearance vs Reality, Morality and Corruption
Gardner (1959)
(Gardark and devious):
“The dark and devious world in which Hamlet finds himself… involves all who enter it in guilt”
- Claudius’ effects –> he has infected Denmark so that immoral and corrupt behaviour is commonplace
- Morality, Corruption, Revenge and Disease
Rebecca Smith (1980)
(Rebopposites Smith):
“Gertrude is caught miserably at the centre of a desperate struggle between two mighty opposites”
- Struggles to find a balance between a Mother and a Wife
- Role of Women
Showalter (1985)
(Showalter=ODTSL):
“Ophelia is deprived of thought, sexuality, language”
- She is a plot device - has no control over the events that affect her
- Role of Women, Appearance vs Reality, Relationships and Sexuality
Emma Smith (2019)
(Emmidentity Smith):
“Hamlet bears the name of a dead man. His very identity is caught up in the past”
- Due to his name, he is destined to be trapped in the past and is constantly looking backwards instead of forwards
- Madness, Revenge and Disease
Von Goethe
(Von Goly duties)
“All duties seem holy for Hamlet”
Coleridge
(Cobliged)
“Hamlet is obliged to act on the spur of the moment”
- Impulsivity
Benedict Cumberbatch
“the youth seem to suffer at the hands of the generation above them”
- Cumberbatch on his own production
Besley - Morals
(Besleymargin)
“Revenge exists on a margin between justice and crime”
(Rythought)
“[he kills Claudius] suddenly, without forethought”
Emma Smith
(Smith’s soliloquies FRC)
“Hamlet’s soliloquies have come to represent the ultimate articulation of a fraught, reflective consciousness”
Claire McEachern
(Mcinnerchern)
“his lack of purpose and inner strength… is degrading for a king’s son”
Ophelia painting
John Everet Millais
- Poppies represent death
- Willow tree represents forsaken love
- Nettles represent pain
- Daisies represent innocence
Will Tosh (2016)
(Toshraction)
Shakespeare believed “that excessive or unrequited love could lead to mental distraction.”
- “Ophelia later appears on stage as a model of what early modern people understood to be a ‘distracted’ woman pushed into insanity by love, her seemingly meaningless chatter suggestive of disturbing sexual obsession.”
Crawford
(Crawfundamental sanity)
“It is this exuberant humour that reveals beyond doubt Hamlet’s fundamental sanity”
Blackmore - madness
- Blackmore argues that Shakespeare uses too many attributes of a madman to make Hamlet’s madness believable
- Feigned –> Never loses control of language, discloses plan to fake madness to Horatio, treatment of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
- Only temporarily insane when he kills Polonius and mourns Ophelia
Elliot
Elliotness
“Less than madness, more than feigned” (T.S. Elliot)
Ryobligation
“Hamlet’s obligation to avenge his father seems all but forgotten” (Ryan, 2016)
ComplusRyan
“The main cause of the whole tragic train of events is Hamlet’s compulsion to postpone” (Ryan, 2016)
Smith fraught
“The relationship between speech and action is so famously fraught” (Emma Smith)
Smith forward
“Claudius looks forward, Hamlet looks backward” (Emma Smith)
Freud
Oedipus complex
- Claudius did what Hamlet wants, kill King Hamlet and sleep with Gertrude.
Killing Claudius = Killing Himself
Revenge = Suicide –> Hamlet’s confusion and delaying of revenge
Smith preoccupied
“Hamlet is preoccupied with the past” (Emma Smith)
Voltaire & T.S. Elliot
Both believe ‘Hamlet’ is poorly written and Shakespeare didn’t write characters well enough –> behaviour makes no sense
Blackmopposing
“Two opposing schools” (Blackmore)
- Feigned vs Unfeigned madness
Lee Edwards story
“We can imagine Hamlet’s story without Ophelia but Ophelia literally has no story without Hamlet” (Lee Edwards, 1979)
- Feminist critic
