Hamlet, Critical Quotes

Question 1

He loved Gertrude deeply and genuinely

Answer 1

Anthony Dawson: Claudius and Love

Question 2

a woman of exuberant sexuality, who inspires uxorious passion first in King Hamlet and later in Claudius

Answer 2

Harold Bloom: Gertrude and Love

Question 3

Revenge is not justice. It is rather an act of injustice on behalf of justice

Answer 3

Paul Belsey: Hamlet and Revenge

Question 4

Hamlet only possesses the word of an unreliable ghost… as a basis for revenge

Answer 4

Anne Barton: Hamlet and Revenge

Question 5

Hamlet assumes without any questioning that he ought to avenge his father

Answer 5

A.C. Bradley: Hamlet and Revenge

Question 6

The desire for vengeance is seen as part of a continuing pattern of human conduct

Answer 6

Nigel Alexander: Hamlet and Revenge

Question 7

Claudius’ evil has corrupted the whole kingdom of Denmark

Answer 7

Richard Altick: Claudius and Kingship

Question 8

[Gertrude is] negative and insignificant

Answer 8

T.S. Eliot: Gertrude and Power

Question 9

All duties seem holy to Hamlet

Answer 9

Von Goethe: Hamlet and Religion

Question 10

Hamlet is unable to carry out the sacred duty… of punishing an evil man by death

Answer 10

A.C. Bradley: Hamlet and Religion

Question 11

[Hamlet] had no firm belief in himself or anything

Answer 11

Samuel Coleridge: Hamlet and Philosophy

Question 12

Ghosts of departed persons are not wandering souls of men but the unquiet walks of the devil

Answer 12

Thomas Browne, Religio Medici 1643: The Ghost and Philosophy

Question 13

[Gertrude is] strong minded, intelligent, succinct and sensible

Answer 13

Carolyn Heilbrun: Gertrude and Feminism

Question 14

Hamlet’s far fetched scruples are often mere pretexts to cover his want of determination

Answer 14

Friedrich Schlegel: Hamlet and Masculinity

Question 15

Hamlet is haunted, not by a physical fear of dying, but of being dead

Answer 15

C.S. Lewis: Hamlet and Death

Question 16

Women are often given the same advice that is given to servants… Chastity, piety, obedience

Answer 16

Diana Bornstein: Feminism and Society

Question 17

we are never perfectly certain as to just who or what the ghost is

Answer 17

John Dover Wilson: The Ghost and Supernatural

Question 18

pleasing men is Gertrude’s main interest

Answer 18

Rebecca Smith: Gertrude and Loyalty

Question 19

He is being asked, as a son who loves his father, to avenge his father’s foul and unnatural murder

Answer 19

Gabriel Josipovici: Hamlet and Role of a Son

Question 20

The violence towards the mother is the effect of the desire for her

Answer 20

Jacqueline Rose: Gertrude and Role of a Son

Question 21

Hamlet’s will is paralysed by his intellect

Answer 21

Jotham Lowell: Hamlet and Inaction

Question 22

Hamlet is obliged to act on the spur of the moment [when killing Claudius and Polonius]

Answer 22

Samuel Coleridge: Hamlet and Inaction

Question 23

With the strongest purposes of revenge, he is irresolute and inactive

Answer 23

Henry Mackenzie: Hamlet and Inaction

Question 24

Unworthy of a hero

Answer 24

Thomas Hamner: Hamlet and Heroism

Question 25

Hamlet's suffering and behaviour stem from the fact that he cannot find a play to be part of

Answer 25

Gabriel Josipovici: Hamlet and Playing

Question 26

He himself is literally no better than the sinner whom he is to punish

Answer 26

Kate Flint: Hamlet and Honour

Question 27

Hamlet is a merge of the tragic hero and the clown figure

Answer 27

Gabriel Josipovici: Hamlet and Honour

Question 28

Revenge exists on a margin between justice and crime

Answer 28

Paul Belsey: Hamlet and Morality

Question 29

[Claudius] is morally empty

Answer 29

Paul Schofield: Claudius and Morality

Question 30

[madness] gives him the licence of a fool to speak the cruel truths, transgressing the language of social decorum

Answer 30

Kate Flint: Hamlet and Madness

Question 31

Hamlet is an element of evil in the state of Denmark

Answer 31

Wilson Knight: Hamlet and Tragedy

Question 32

[Hamlet is] a poetic and morally sensitive soul, crushed by the barbarous task of murder

Answer 32

Von Goethe: Hamlet and Corruption

Question 33

a play about a father and son who were undone... by sexually treacherous women

Answer 33

Avi Ehrlich: Women and Corruption

Question 34

The Ghost is corrupting Hamlet with his thirst for vengeance

Answer 34

Philip Edwards: The Ghost and Corruption

Question 35

that piece of bait named Ophelia

Answer 35

Jacques Lacan: Ophelia and Power

Question 36

[Laertes] denies his conscience, his King and his God

Answer 36

Eleanor Prosser: Laertes and Religion

Question 37

Ophelia has no chance to develop an independent conscience of her own

Answer 37

Juliet Dusinberre: Ophelia and Feminism

Question 38

Ophelia literally has no story without Hamlet

Answer 38

Lee Edwards: Ophelia and Marxism

Question 39

Horatio serves as the foil

Answer 39

A.W. Verity: Horatio and Loyalty

Question 40

[Polonius] is a cold-hearted devil... prepared to gamble with his daughter's distress

Answer 40

J.H. Walter: Polonius and Parenthood

Question 41

[Polonius] trained his daughter to be obedient and chaste... a piece of bait for spying

Answer 41

Rebecca Smith: Polonius and Parenthood

Question 42

Laertes and Fortinbras are both representatives of action

Answer 42

Matthew Hall: Laertes and Inaction

Question 43

Sanity is humour

Answer 43

Sir Herbert Tree: Ophelia and Madness

Question 44

[Polonius is] a man whose moral compass is infinitely wobbly

Answer 44

Gabriel Josipovici: Polonius and Morality