Hamlet Critics Flashcards
Aristotle on tragedy
There could not be a tragedy without action
Good to bad fortune = “disgust”
Johnson on Hamlets madness
Pretended madness… causes much mirth (but useless - modern like dark humour as liberated of problems we can laugh at)
“Reputation of sanity”
“Unsuitable… falsehoods”
Johnson on Hamlets behaviour
Wanton cruelty
Not content with taking blood for blood… too horrible
Stubbes on prayer scene
So inhuman, so unworthy of a hero
Neo-classicists on tragedy
Everything must be for the plot
Tragedies are a “judicial proceeding”
Richardson on Hamlet
Moved by finer principles
Exquisite
Unnecessary
(Great virtue that) Cannot succeed in a fallen world
Mackenzie on Hamlet
Extreme sensibility of mind
By hamlet hesitating we have great anxiety for the person and not the event
Goethe on hamlet
Unfit for the performance
Schlegel on hamlets cruelty
Any compassion to spare
Coleridge on action
Countless reproaches
Hazlitt on action
Incapable of deliberate action
Son to make love
