Hamlet AO5

Question 1

Voltaire (1748)

Answer 1

“[Hamlet] is a vulgar and barbarous drama”
(Vulgertaire)
- Morality and corruption

Question 2

Johnson (1765)

Answer 2

(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

Question 3

Vining (1881)

Answer 3

“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

Question 4

Wilson Knight (1930)

Answer 4

(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

Question 5

Clemen (1951)

Answer 5

(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

Question 6

Mack (1952)

Answer 6

(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

Question 7

Gardner (1959)

Answer 7

(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

Question 8

Rebecca Smith (1980)

Answer 8

(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

Question 9

Showalter (1985)

Answer 9

(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

Question 10

Emma Smith (2019)

Answer 10

(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

Question 11

Von Goethe

Answer 11

(Von Goly duties)

“All duties seem holy for Hamlet”

Question 12

Coleridge

Answer 12

(Cobliged)

“Hamlet is obliged to act on the spur of the moment”
- Impulsivity

Question 13

Benedict Cumberbatch

Answer 13

“the youth seem to suffer at the hands of the generation above them”
- Cumberbatch on his own production

Question 14

Besley - Morals

Answer 14

(Besleymargin)

“Revenge exists on a margin between justice and crime”

Question 15

(Rythought)

Answer 15

“[he kills Claudius] suddenly, without forethought”

Question 16

Emma Smith

Answer 16

(Smith’s soliloquies FRC)
“Hamlet’s soliloquies have come to represent the ultimate articulation of a fraught, reflective consciousness”

Question 17

Claire McEachern

Answer 17

(Mcinnerchern)

“his lack of purpose and inner strength… is degrading for a king’s son”

Question 18

Ophelia painting

Answer 18

John Everet Millais
- Poppies represent death
- Willow tree represents forsaken love
- Nettles represent pain
- Daisies represent innocence

Question 19

Will Tosh (2016)

Answer 19

(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.”

Question 20

Crawford

Answer 20

(Crawfundamental sanity)

“It is this exuberant humour that reveals beyond doubt Hamlet’s fundamental sanity”

Question 21

Blackmore - madness

Answer 21

• 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

Question 22

Elliot

Answer 22

Elliotness
“Less than madness, more than feigned” (T.S. Elliot)

Question 23

Ryobligation

Answer 23

“Hamlet’s obligation to avenge his father seems all but forgotten” (Ryan, 2016)

Question 24

ComplusRyan

Answer 24

“The main cause of the whole tragic train of events is Hamlet’s compulsion to postpone” (Ryan, 2016)

Question 25

Smith fraught

Answer 25

“The relationship between speech and action is so famously fraught” (Emma Smith)

Question 26

Smith forward

Answer 26

“Claudius looks forward, Hamlet looks backward” (Emma Smith)

Question 27

Freud

Answer 27

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

Question 28

Smith preoccupied

Answer 28

“Hamlet is preoccupied with the past” (Emma Smith)

Question 29

Voltaire & T.S. Elliot

Answer 29

Both believe ‘Hamlet’ is poorly written and Shakespeare didn’t write characters well enough –> behaviour makes no sense

Question 30

Blackmopposing

Answer 30

“Two opposing schools” (Blackmore)
- Feigned vs Unfeigned madness

Question 31

Lee Edwards story

Answer 31

“We can imagine Hamlet’s story without Ophelia but Ophelia literally has no story without Hamlet” (Lee Edwards, 1979)
- Feminist critic