AO5: Critics

Question 1

Appearance Vs Reality

Answer 1

Spaeth: Hamlet is a different person in different situations - his words and actions are intended to conceal his true self

Question 2

Fate

Answer 2

A.C Bradley: “love, remorse and grief are the same in a peasant as a king”

Question 3

Monarchy

Answer 3

Knight: Claudius is a good and gentle king, enmeshed by the chain of causality linking him with his crime

Question 4

Love

Answer 4

Dawson: Claudius loved Gertrude deeply and genuinely

Question 5

Madness

Answer 5

Wilde: Hamlet uses madness to mask his weakness

Question 6

Villainy

Answer 6

Sagar: Claudius’ first speech is ‘the language of a hypocrite and a villain’

Question 7

Women

Answer 7

Leverenz: hamlet’s disgust at the feminine passivity in himself is translated into violent revulsion against women and into his brutal behaviour towards Ophelia

Question 8

family:

Answer 8

Jones: Claudius has fulfilled precisely Hamlet’s own Oedipal fantasies

Question 9

Setting:

Answer 9

Marret: Suicide as a way to escape the corruption of Denmark

Question 10

Supernatural:

Answer 10

Wilson: ‘The ghost is the linchpin of Hamlet, remove it, and the whole play falls to pieces’

Question 11

Religion:

Answer 11

Goethe: All duties seem holy for Hamlet

Question 12

Revenge:

Answer 12

Kitteredge: Laertes is the typical avenger

Question 13

Masculinity:

Answer 13

Belsey: Hamlets hesitation was regarded as feminine

Question 14

Corruption:

Answer 14

Scofield: Claudius is morally empty

Question 15

Death:

Answer 15

Smith: ‘Hamlet really is a play of the undead’ ‘his strongest affections are towards the dead’

Question 16

Friendship:

Answer 16

Limmer: ‘True friendship in the Renaissance ideal was understood to result from the free choice of an individual, as opposed to being a pre-existing family or political relationship.’

Question 17

Loyalty:

Answer 17

Belsey: Elizabethan audiences would’ve regarded Hamlet with “ambivalence” because paternal loyalty was important and you should murder a bad king

Question 18

Betrayal:

Answer 18

David: argues R+G are ‘A pair of faceless automatons’

Question 19

Comedy:

Answer 19

Snyder: ‘Comedy is the ground from which… tragedy develops’