hamlet critics

Question 1

Diplomat

Knight

Answer 1

Claudius shows every sign of being an excellent diplomat and king

Question 2

T.S. Eliot

Answer 2

The opening scene of Hamlet is as well constructed as that of any play ever written

Question 3

Deprivation

Showalter

Answer 3

Ophelia is deprived of thought, sexuality, and language

Question 4

Rogers

Answer 4

In Shakespeare’s society, the ideal female is cherished for her youth, beauty, and purity

Question 5

Von Goethe

Answer 5

All duties seem holy to Hamlet

Question 6

Johnson

Answer 6

Hamlet is rather an instrument than an agent

Question 7

Madness

Mack

Answer 7

Hamlet can be privileged in madness to say things about the corruption of human nature

Question 8

Incapability

Hazlitt

Answer 8

Hamlet seems incapable of deliberate action

Question 9

Delay

Bradley

Answer 9

Hamlet’s delay is due to… a form of melancholy

Question 10

Swinbourne

Answer 10

The single characteristic of Hamlet’s character is by no means hesitation but the strong conflux of contending forces

Question 11

Tragedy

Bradley

Answer 11

Hamlet is a tragedy of thought

Question 12

Edwards

Answer 12

We can imagine Hamlet’s story without Ophelia, but Ophelia literally has no story without Hamlet

Question 13

Showalter quoting Leverenz

Answer 13

Hamlet’s disgust at the feminine passivity in himself is translated into violent revulsion against women

Question 14

Mabillard

Answer 14

Claudius is not a monster, he is morally weak

Question 15

Arnold

Answer 15

Claudius’ soliloquy gives the impression of rhetorical pageantry rather than sincere contrition

Question 16

Muir

Answer 16

Gertrude is a moral defective

Question 17

Wilson

Answer 17

The ghost is the linchpin of Hamlet

Question 18

Charney

Answer 18

Through madness, Ophelia suddenly makes a forceful assertion of her being

Question 19

Madness

Showalter

Answer 19

Hamlet’s madness is associated with intellectual and imaginative genius, but Ophelia’s affliction is erotomania or love-madness

Question 20

Kerrigan

Answer 20

Ophelia is a lesser we have never really known

Question 21

Drama

Adelman

Answer 21

Throughout the play, the covert drama of reformation vies for priority with the overt drama of revenge

Question 22

Motivation

Adelman

Answer 22

Even as an avenger, Hamlet seems motivated more by his mother than by his father

Question 23

Conduct

Hazlitt

Answer 23

His conduct to Ophelia is quite natural in his circumstances. It is that of assumed severity only. It is the effect of disappointed hope, of bitter regrets, of affection suspended, not obliterated, by the distractions of the scene around him

Question 24

Marry/Wound Ophelia

Hazlitt

Answer 24

He could neither marry Ophelia, nor wound her mind by explaining the cause of his alienation

Question 25

Coleridge

Answer 25

You will observe in Ophelia’s short and general answer to the speech of Laertes the natural carelessness of innocence, which cannot think such a code of cautions and prudences necessary to its own preservation

Question 26

Final act

Mack

Answer 26

In the final act, Hamlet accepts his world and we discover a different man

Question 27

Frye

Answer 27

Hamlet is a tragedy without catharsis

Question 28

O’Toole

Answer 28

Hamlet poses great problems for the tragic hero theory because he is patently not a hero

Question 29

McGrory

Answer 29

Women in Shakespeare are either maiden saints or loathsome sinners

Question 30

Poison

Knight

Answer 30

Hamlet is in fact the poison in the veins of the community