Hamlet Critical Views Flashcards
Oedipus Complex - Joes
‘Hamlet’s interview with his mother… expresses itself in that most physical disgust which is so characteristic of intensely ‘repressed’ sexual feeling’
Inaction - Bradley
‘Hamlet is unable to carry out the sacred duty, imposed by divine authority, of punishing an evil man by death’
Duty - Van Goethe
‘all duties seem holy for Hamlet’
Indecision - Swinburne
‘the single characteristic of Hamlet’s innermost nature is by no means irresolution or hesitation but rather the strong conflux of contending forces’
Instrument - Johnson
‘Hamlet is… rather an instrument than an agent’
Villainy - Knight
‘he is in fact the poison in the veins of the community’
Overthinking - Bradley
‘tragedy of thought’
Intellect - Bradley
‘is connected with intellectual nature rather than with any yielding passion’
Misogyny - Showalter
‘Ophelia is deprived of thought, sexuality and language… she represents the strong emotions that the Elizabethans thought womanish’
Revenge - Goldman
‘the Ghost has brought purgatory into the real world as Hamlet can’t rest until he’s taken revenge’
Religious context - Campbell and Quinn
‘Hamlet is no Pagan avenger of Icelandic saga, but a Christian Elizabethan who adopted the current confused beliefs of his age about ghosts’
Female madness - Showalter
‘representational bonds between female insanity and female sexuality’
Polonius’ character - Smith
‘Polonius seems to love his children; he seems to have the welfare of the kingdom in mind. His means of action, however, are totally corrupt’
Polonius corruption - Smith
‘trained his daughter to be obedient and chaste and is able to use her as a piece of bait for spying’
Gertrude - Graf
‘is in fact protecting her son from the man who murdered her husband’
