Hamlet Critics

Question 1

Goethe

Answer 1

’ a lovely, pure and noble and most moral nature…. Sinks beneath a burden which it cannot bear and must not cast away’

Question 2

AC Bradley

Answer 2

Sees Hamlet as a son made melancholy by his mothers sexual depravity

Question 3

Ernest Jones

Answer 3

Suggests Hamlet’s problem is that he has an Oedipus complex. He cannot murder Claudius as he has committed the deed which he has wished to carry out

Question 4

Caroline Spurgeon

Answer 4

Identified ‘the number of images and sickness and disease as a describe if the whole condition of Denmark morally’

Question 5

LC Knights

Answer 5

Hamlets judgements are brooding upon evil and pathologically unbalanced

Question 6

Van Goethe

Answer 6

Religion - all duties seem holy for hamlet

Question 7

Swinburne

Answer 7

Hamlets - the single characteristics of hamlets nature is strong contending forces not hesitation

Question 8

Bradley - Religion

Answer 8

Hamlet is unable to carry out the scarred duty I prose by divine authority of punishing an evil man by death

Question 9

Samuel Johnson

Answer 9

Hamlet is rather an instrument than an agent

Question 10

Coleridge

Answer 10

Hensley is obliged to act on spur of the moment

Question 11

Wilson knight

Answer 11

Claudius as he appears in the play isn’t s criminal - he is a gentle King enmeshed by the chain of casually linking him with his crime

Question 12

Wilson Knight

Answer 12

Hamlet is an element of evil in the state of Denmark

Question 13

Alexander

Answer 13

The play doesn’t offer any conclusions about what is the right response to the questions it poses about human aggression

Question 14

Belsey

Answer 14

Revenge is not justice - it is an act of injustice on behalf of justice

Question 15

Belsey

Answer 15

Revenge is always in excess of justice

Question 16

Belsey

Answer 16

Revenge always exists on a margin between justice and crime

Question 17

Wilson knight on Hamlets morality

Answer 17

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

Question 18

Alexander

Answer 18

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

Question 19

Rebecca smith

Answer 19

Polonius seems to love his children and he seems to have the welfare of the kingdom in mind. His means of actions are totally corrupt tho.

Question 20

Rebecca smith - P and O

Answer 20

Trained his daughter to be obedient and chaste and uses her as bait for spying