Hamlet Critical Debates

Question 1

when were versions of Hamlet published and what does this mean?

Answer 1

1603, 1604, 1623
no definitive version of the play

Question 2

what are key issues critics explore?

Answer 2

Hamlet’s delay: is there a ‘flaw’ preventing him from acting or other circumstances?
Hamlet’s madness: is it feigned or genuine?
role of Gertrude: complicit in OKH’s death, was her remarriage for stability?

Question 3

what did Thomas Hammer say + when?

Answer 3

1736
complained abt H’s behaviour- H’s cruelty in not killing C because he wants to send him to hell
un-Christian attitude + unworthy of a hero

Question 4

Hammer on H’s delay

Answer 4

if he’d killed C sooner, ‘there would have been an End of our Play’
his delay was a necessary plot device

Question 5

Dr Samuel Johnson on H’s behaviour?

Answer 5

he ‘treats Ophelia with so much rudeness … useless and wanton cruelty’
H’s stature as a tragic hero is diminished

Question 6

Johnson on H’s delay

Answer 6

criticises H for his passivity
H is ‘an instrument’ not an ‘agent’ - allows himself to be swayed by circumstance
H ‘makes no attempt to punish’ C and ‘has no part’ in planning the fencing match leading to his death

Question 7

Johnson on Shakespeare’s plot

Answer 7

could find ‘no adequate cause’ for H’s pretend madness ‘for he does nothing which he might not have done with the reputation of sanity’

Question 8

Coleridge + Hamlet

Answer 8

imagined he had a ‘smack of Hamlet’ in him
H and him suffered from an ‘overbalance of the imaginative power’

Question 9

Coleridge on H’s mind

Answer 9

H’s mind is ‘disturbed’ by a lack of ‘balance’ between the ‘real and imaginary worlds’
H suffers because his imagination overpowers him

Question 10

Hazlitt on H’s speeches

Answer 10

H’s speeches + soliloquies ‘are as real as our own thoughts’
H is a ‘real’ person with a ‘real’ mind

Question 11

Hazlitt’s definition of Hamlet

Answer 11

‘the prince of philosophical speculators’ who cant accomplish a ‘perfect’ revenge so ‘declines it altogether’
H is compelled to ‘indulge his imagination’

Question 12

Wilhelm von Schlegel on H’s thoughts

Answer 12

H looses himself in ‘labyrinths of thought’ without ‘end or beginning’
his thoughts ‘cripple’ H from taking action

Question 13

Shelley on H’s thoughts

Answer 13

someone too prone to lose himself in thought ‘his profound meditations seem without beginning or end, while he wanders in a wilderness of thought’
‘whenever he does anything, he seems astonished at himself, and calls it rashness

Question 14

Lamb on Hamlet

Answer 14

identified with a Hamlet he saw as delicate and sensitive ‘shy, negligent, retiring’ + uncomfortable with his role as revenge hero

Question 15

dramatic poem?

Answer 15

romantics felt no actor could do the role of H justice bc of its psychological complexity

Question 16

Hazlitt’s account of Kemble

Answer 16

1817- ‘there is no play that suffers so much in being transferred to the stage’
Kemble (actor)= ‘too deliberate and formal … too strong and pointed’
‘Hamlet himself seems hardly capable of being acted’

Question 17

Freud on H’s murders

Answer 17

H kills Polonius without a moment’s hesitation + kills R+G without troubling his conscience

Question 18

Freud on Hamlet’s Oedipal feelings

Answer 18

H’s inability to act rooted in H’s Oedipal feelings
same-sex parent as rival for opposite-sex parent’s attention

Question 19

Freud on H not killing C

Answer 19

H can’t kill C bc he can’t ‘take vengeance on the man who did away with his father + took that father’s place with the mother’
C fulfilled ‘the repressed wishes’ of H’s childhood, he has an affinity w/him that doesnt let him take his revenge
H restrained by the realisation that he is ‘no better than the sinner whom he is to punish’

Question 20

Adelman on Gertrude

Answer 20

G inspires ‘fantasies larger than she is’
‘both the play and H shift blame for OKH’s murder to G’

Question 21

setting- G’s bedroom

Answer 21

3.4 occurs in G’s bedroom
repressed oedipal feelings to mother

Question 22

Coleridge on H’s character

Answer 22

‘consider H as a real person’
delay was central problem of the play

Question 23

Bradley on Hamlet

Answer 23

suffered from a psychological disorder- ‘melancholy’ (Gertrude was root cause)
H’s suicidal feelings from mother’s behaviour- ‘the moral shock of the sudden ghastly disclosure of his mother’s true nature’

Question 24

impact of G’s incest

Answer 24

G’s ‘incestuous wedlock’ results in H’s mind being ‘poisoned’ against all women
‘he can never see Ophelia in the same light again: she is a woman, and his mother is a woman’
H judges O by his mother’s standards

Question 25

TS Eliot on G

Answer 25

the play was an ‘artistic failure’ because H’s ‘disgust is occasioned by his mother’, but G is so ‘insignificant’ a character she can’t be the cause of his feelings
S did not develop G

Question 26

negative stereotyping of women

Answer 26

‘self-sacrificing angel’, ‘dangerous seductress’
female behaviour more passive + powerless

Question 27

Lisa Jardine

Answer 27

questioned why critics (Freud, Eliot) put ‘the play’s burden of guilt’ on G and present H as a ‘blameless hero’
blamed the ‘political tendency’ in society- powerful blame the ‘disadvantaged of all races, genders and sexual preferences’ for their lack of power

Question 28

Massai: misogynistic play

Answer 28

H is ‘one of the most fiercely misogynistic plays’ + ‘G is the target of this hatred’

Question 29

Massai: G’s compassion

Answer 29

G is ‘ambiguous’ (agrees w Eliot)
G ‘has a lot of compassion for O’ + her remarriage ‘was not so uncommon, particularly in the context of royal families

Question 30

Massai: biblical ambiguity

Answer 30

if marrying one’s dead husband’s brother was ‘incestuous or not’- Deuteronomy urged it

Question 31

Massai: silencing of women

Answer 31

‘the fundamental problem with Ophelia & Gertrude in the play is that they each speak 4% of the lines in the play so they are mostly represented’
they are underdeveloped + defined by the male characters

Question 32

David Leverenz

Answer 32

O’s dramatic function= ‘everyone has used her: Polonius, to gain favour; Laertes, to belittle Hamlet; Claudius, to spy on Hamlet; Hamlet, to express rage at Gertrude and Hamlet again, to express his feigned madness with her as decoy’
madness was inevitable from exploitation

Question 33

Carol Rutter

Answer 33

‘O is…bullied [and] betrayed by every person in this play’
O ‘performs … the psychic journey of Prince H and the big themes for the play. H thinks about madness; Ophelia plays it fr…H toys with the idea of suicide;… Ophelia commits suicide.’

Question 34

Carol Camden

Answer 34

‘H’s pretended madness is contrasted with the reality of O’s madness’
she is a marginal figure even w madness, but H’s fake madness dominates the play
masculine = dominant, femininity = subordinate

Question 35

Katherine Goodland

Answer 35

H imposes gender roles on O in nunnery scene- ‘a saint at the beginning of the scene to a painted whore by the end.’

Question 36

Charney and Charney

Answer 36

madness= empowerment, finding O’s authentic voice
Charney x2 argue ‘her madness…enables her to assert her being; she is no longer enforced to keep silent + play the dutiful daughter’

Question 37

what is key to marxist thinking?

Answer 37

thoughts + behaviour are conditioned by society

Question 38

Terry Eagleton

Answer 38

H resists playing the roles expected of him (‘chivalric lover, obedient revenger or future king’), and is ‘unable to find self-definition’
H is trapped between society’s expectations + his inability to redefine himself

Question 39

James Shapiro

Answer 39

tension from conflict between ‘forces’ of history- old world ‘chivalry’ fading + new society founded on Protestantism + global capitalism

Question 40

Graham Holderness

Answer 40

dramatised fundamental changes in Elizabethan society
‘medieval world’ of OKH fading + Denmark is not rules by the values of a ‘medieval warrior-king’ anymore
C= new vision of statesmanship, he renegotiates peace
H is ‘stranded between 2 worlds, unable to emulate the heroic values of his father, unable to engage with the modern world of political diplomacy’