Hamlet Critics Flashcards
Aristotle
What did neo-classicists say about Aristotle and hamlet?
“Tragedy is the imitation of action”
Neo-classicists such as Thomas Ryder criticised Hamlet for not following Aristotle’s dramatic theory
Thomas Hanmer (1736) (Hamlet’s cruelty towards Claudius praying)
“so unworthy of a hero”
Thomas Hanmer 1736
Hamlet’s lack of action
“If Hamlet had not delayed, there would have been an end to our play”
Dr Johnson 1765
Hamlet’s character
“A man overwhelmed with the magnitude of his own purposes”
William Hazlitt (Romantic) (Hamlet as Everyman)
“it is we who are Hamlet”
Samuel Coleridge - Romantic critic
Hamlet
“[Hamlet] is an intellectual who thinks too much and can’t make up his mind”
Lamb - Romantic critic
Hamlet
“Shy, negligent, retiring Hamlet”
Goethe (Romantic)
Hamlet’s actions
“the effects of a great action laid upon a soul unfit for the performance of it”
Henry Mackenzie - Romantic critic
Hamlet
“With the strongest purposes of revenge, he is irresolute and inactive”
Catherine Belsey 1979
Revenge
“Revenge exists in the margin between justice and crime”
Freud - 20th C critic
(Hamlet) - x2 quotes
“Oedipus complex”
“Hamlet sees himself mirrored in his uncle and doesn’t want to kill a part of himself”
AC Bradley (20th C) (Hamlet’s delay)
“a man who at any other time and in other circumstances… would have been perfectly equal to his task”
C.S. Lewis - 20th C critic
Hamlet
“An Everyman character who is haunted by original sin and fear of death”
Dover Wilson (20th C) (Ghost)
Hamlet and audience are “left with uncertainty about the ‘honesty’ of the Ghost”
G. Wilson Knight (20th C)
Denmark
“Hamlet is an element of evil in the state of Denmark”
