Hamlet Interpretations- EARLY

Question 1

Jeremy Collier,1698

Answer 1

‘ [depiction of Ophelia is] lewd and unreasonable ‘

Question 2

George Buchanan, 1579

Answer 2

‘People would be right if they sought vengeance on an arrogant and worthless tyrant’

Question 3

Thomas Hanmer, 17__

Answer 3

1736

‘Hamlet’s conduct is cruel.. something very bloody in it, so inhuman, so unworthy of a hero’

Question 4

Voltaire, 1___8

Answer 4

1748

‘vulgar and barbarous drama…but some sublime passages, worthy of the greatest genius.’

Question 5

Voltaire, 174__

Answer 5

1748

‘Hamlet’s conversation with the gravediggers…responds..in silliness no less disgusting.’

Question 6

Johnson, 17___

Answer 6

1765

‘Hamlet is…rather an instrument than an agent’

Question 7

Johnson, 16

Answer 7

1765

‘gratification..from the destruction of a..murderer is abated by the untimely death of Ophelia, the young, the beautiful, the harmless’

Question 8

Samuel Coleridge, 1___3

Answer 8

1813

‘he is constantly occupied with the world within, and abstracted from the word without’