Hamlet Critics Quotes

Question 1

David Scott Katson (tragedy genre)

Answer 1

‘If any theoretical pressures existed to shape Shakespeare’s understanding of tragedy they came more from medieval articulations of the genre than classical ones’

Question 2

David Scott Kaston (tragedy suffering)

Answer 2

‘Tragedy, for Shakespeare, is the genre of uncompensated suffering’

Question 3

Maynard Mack (Hamlet’s madness)

Answer 3

‘Hamlet is privileged in madness to say things about the corruption of human nature’

Question 4

Vardi (spying)

Answer 4

‘Spying is endemic’

Question 5

Vardi (polonius)

Answer 5

‘Polonius is at the heart of the corrupt state’

Question 6

Hazlitt (Polonius)

Answer 6

‘Acts sensibly, talks foolishly’

Question 7

Richardson (morality)

Answer 7

‘Hamlet was an unusually morally defined man for Shakespeare’

Question 8

A. C. Bradley (tragic hero)

Answer 8

‘No play at the end of which the hero remains alive is, in the full Shakespearean sense, a tragedy’

Question 9

John Kerrigan (Hamlet and revenge)

Answer 9

‘Hamlet never promises to revenge, only to remember’

Question 10

Janet Adelman (revenge)

Answer 10

‘Hamlet manages to achieve his revenge only when he can avenge his mother’s death, not his father’s’

Question 11

Carroll Camden (Ophelia’s madness)

Answer 11

‘Hamlet is more responsible for her madness than Polonius’ death’

Question 12

Hazlitt (Hamlet)

Answer 12

‘Hamlet is not a character marked by strength of will or even passion, but by refinement of thought and sentiment’

Question 13

David Bevington (Claudius)

Answer 13

‘Claudius is able to manipulate people even the ones he claims to love’

Question 14

A. C. Bradley (love tragedies)

Answer 14

‘It is only in the love tragedies that the heroine is as much the centre of the action as the hero’

Question 15

Maynard Mack (madness as punishment)

Answer 15

‘Madness is to some degree a punishment or doom’

Question 16

Janet Adelman (closet scene)

Answer 16

‘The confrontation of Hamlet with Gertrude in the closet scene seems much more central, much more vivid, than any confrontation between Hamlet and Claudius’