Hamlet critics and interpretations Flashcards
“a vile and barbarous drama that would not be tolerated by the vilest populace of France, or Italy”
Voltaire, french writer in 1700s
referring to the “country matters” punning - “if ever a poet deserved a whipping for low and indecent ribaldry, it was for this passage”
Lewis Theobald, 1700s
Hamlet’s passivity in enacting revenge, he is “rather an instrument than an agent”
Samuel Johnson, 1700s
the insertion of revenge into Hamlet as a character is equivalent to “an oak tree planted in a costly jar”
Goethe, 1700s, romantic
“it is we who are Hamlet”
Hamlet articulates the experience of anyone who has felt “his mind sink within him”
William Hazlitt, romantic writer
I have “a smack of Hamlet in myself”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, romantic poet
rejects idea that Hamlet is paralysed by his thoughts, points out killing Polonius and sending R & G to death
Freud, 1900
Hamlet is unable to kill the man who shows him “the repressed wishes of his own childhood realised”
Freud, 1900 - Hamlet has an oedipus complex
Hamlet’s “whole mind is poisoned” by his grief and his melancholy is “the centre of the tragedy”
A.C Bradley, 1904
Gertrude is too “negative and insignificant” to be a believable cause of Hamlet’s despair
T.S Eliot, modernist, 1900s
“we need not see the world through Hamlet’s eyes” as Hamlet was “an element of evil in the state of Denmark”
Wilson Knight, mid 1900s
Hamlet can’t be expected to act like a real person as “Hamlet is a character in a play, not in history”
John Dover Wilson, mid 1900s
“the subject of Hamlet is death”
C.S Lewis, mid 1900s
if we look at Gertrude’s own lines, she is a woman of sound good sense
Carolyn Heilbrun, feminist, late 1900s
Ophelia is a hybrid of patriarchal assumptions and symbolisms used to typify young women
Elaine Showalter, feminist, late 1900s
Hamlet is “a charismatic of charismatics” but is still a “hero-villain”, whose value lies in being “the leading Western representation of an intellectual”
Harold Bloom, late 1900s, humanist
Hamlet is “hoodwinked by history” and “it’s the time that’s ‘out of joint’ and not Hamlet”
Kiernan Ryan, late 1900s
Hamlet is more interested in redeeming his mother than revenging his father, and ‘The Mousetrap’ was “to catch the conscience of the Queen”
Janet Adelman, feminist, modern
Polonius being in Gertrude’s closet “fatally confuses privacy with affairs of state”
Lisa Jardine
“Hamlet spectacularly fails to keep his oath to his father”
Kiernan Ryan
Polonius is a “parodic version of other characters in the play”
Hartwig
Polonius is more than “a rash intruding fool” and represents the corruption and “rottenness” in the state
Richard Vardy
“Polonius is instrumental to the seizure and control of power and is at the heart of this corrupt, oppressive state”
Richard Vardy
“In Denmark’s corrupt world, spying is epidemic”
Richard Vardy
Hamlet “relates to claudius and claudius has committed the deed he wished to do’
Ernest Jones
Hamlet is “a poetic and morally sensitive soul crushed by the barbarous task of murder”
Goethe, romantic
“Hamlet is obliged to act on the spur of the moment”
Coleridge
“Hamlet is unable to carry out the sacred duty, imposed by divine authority, of punishing an evil man by death”
AC Bradley
Hamlet is a “manic depressant”
AC Bradley
“Delay in exacting revenge is a symptom of [Hamlet’s] ”disgust for life”
AC Bradley
“Revenge exists on a margin between justice and crime”
Belsey
“[Polonius] Trained his daughter to be obedient and chaste and is able to use her as a piece of bait for spying
Rebecca Smith
“Ophelia is deprived of thought, sexuality and language…she represents the strong emotions that the Elizabethans thought womanish”
Shopwalter
Hamlet is “sensitive” and “incapacitated”
Richardson
Identifies the “number of images of decay/sickness and disease…as descriptive of the unwholesome condition of Denmark normally”
Catherine Spurgeon
Hamlet is “A man whose moral compass is infinitely wobbly”
Gabriel Josipovivi
“The feudal, Catholic ghost of the father makes demands for personal vengeance on a rationalist, Protestant son who lives in recognizably early modern court where the state, even if corrupt, has a legal monopoly on justice
Sean McEvoy
“He [Claudius] loved Gertrude deeply and genuinely”
Anthony B Dawson
“Hamlet is haunted, not by a physical fear of dying, but of being dead”
CS Lewis
“Women are often given the same advice that is given to servants… Chastity, piety, obedience”
Diana Bornstein
“Hamlet is a figure of nihilism and death”
Wilson Knight
- Cut 1st scene with the ghost - many scenes are cut to fit it to 2 hours
- His age makes him seem tired and fed up/angry
- Hamlet cuts his hair messily after deciding to appear mad, Ophelia shaves her head after the death of her father, Gertrude’s wig is pulled off by Hamlet revealing her short hair
- Laertes is a black woman, Hamlet is very old, Old Hamlet is a woman
- Ophelia’s perspective followed a bit more (camera following her down the corridor)
- Ophelia is angry at Hamlet after her father’s death showing her agency
- Solidarity between Gertrude and Ophelia - they hug and comfort each other
2024 Sean Mathias film adaptation, with Ian Mckellen playing Hamlet
- Filmed entirely in and around Windsor’s Theatre Royal - emphasising the metatheatrical aspect of the play within a play
- To be or not to be soliloquy is spoken to someone in black - Horatio
- Catholic - icon of Mary is shown at the beginning of the film and characters continually make the sign of the cross, some characters have crucifixes
- R + G have are both dressed in black. Hamlet is clearly overjoyed to see them
- R + G often speak/clap in unison
2024 Sean Mathias film interpretation with Ian Mckellen as Hamlet
- Hamlet wears more colour away from his parents
- Hamlet speaks to the gravedigger from a theatre box
- Horatio wears a crucifix and uses a video recorder to capture Claudius’ reaction to the play
- Hamlet goes mental and hyperactive and enthusiastic during the play
- Claudius prays into a mirror in candle light holding a rosary
- Gertrude’s closet is not that but a kind of botany room/kitchen
- Ghost seen fading in and out through the window
- Hamlet threatens his mother with a knife, later he kisses her on the lips
- Throughout the film, thee/thou/thy/thine are replaced with you/your
- Hamlet’s character overall: calmer than most
- Comedy largely absent, although partially present in Polonius and Osrick
2024 Sean Mathias film interpretation with Ian Mckellen as Hamlet
- A1 S2 - Claudius in white bowtie, Hamlet in black tie - funeral-like
- ghost and Claudius both played by Patrick Stewart
- enjoys the fight between Laertes and H at O’s funeral
- looks in a broken mirror after confession
- clears throat before beginning speech about old H
- light shines behind him during confession but he is in dark
- When Claudius dies, he lays and stretches his hand to Gertrude, whose hand is outstretched also. He doesn’t reach her
- during mousetrap he walks up to H and shakes his head menacingly
Claudius in Gregory Doran’s 2008 RSC production (David Tennant as Hamlet)
- dressed in armour
- not visible on security camera footage
- shakes H violently
- camera shakes when he speaks
- G’s closet scene - Hamlet cries into his mother’s lap, the ghost behind them, like the old family unit, accentuating what Hamlet has lost
- when H swears to avenge him he runs his hand down a blade
Ghost in Gregory Doran’s 2008 RSC production (David Tennant as Hamlet)
- violent with bedsheets during scene in G’s room/closet and shouts a lot, quite threatening
- to be or not be is shot from close up and he closes his eyes
- makes a sort of video diary throughout
- wears a t shirt with a skeleton on
- films the mousetrap and zooms in on Claudius’ reaction
- watched through a double sided mirror
- shoots the mirror when he kills Polonius
Hamlet in Gregory Doran’s 2008 RSC production (David Tennant as Hamlet)
- Robin Williams as Osric, Ken Dodd as Yorrick - famous comedy actors
- Gertrude wears white, H wears black and C wears red in a1 s2
- C and H both have bleach blonde hair
- women wear a lot of white
- opens with panoramic shots of the castle covered in snow
- Old H is initially a statue - wears armour
- ghost wrapped in black sheets
- Hamlet dies in crucifix position
- during to be or not to be H looks in a mirror but doesn’t know C and Polonius are watching from other side
- courtroom full of mirrors, secret doors
Kenneth Branagh version 1996
- when mad she lays on the floor and sees her reflection in it
- when mad she strips
- in her first scene with laertes she is sat and he’s stood/ on the stairs, then she pulls condoms from his bag - comedic, she seems smart
- in her grave she wears a white veil
Ophelia in Gregory Doran’s 2008 RSC production (David Tennant as Hamlet)
- flashbacks of O and H having sex - could be seen as a fantasy in her head
- when O is mad she’s in a padded room and straightjacket
- H is violent with O
- Polonius has a prostitute in his room
- when H drags P’s body he leaves a trail of blood
- H has a vision of killing C during his confession
Kenneth Branagh version 1996
