'Hamlet', by William Shakespeare: Critical Interpretations

Question 1

Recall 5 Critical Interpretations relating to Claudius in Hamlet. Also recall the names of the critics.

Answer 1

• “Even those who Claudius cares for cannot come before his ambitions and desires.” - Amanda Mallibard
• “He [Claudius] uses the death of Hamlet’s father to create a sense of national solidarity.” - Amanda Mallibard
• “To everyone except Hamlet, Claudius is as good as his predecessor.” - Danny
• “Loved Gertrude deeply and genuinely.” - Dawson
• “[Claudius’ murder of his brother is a] crucial instance of evil.” - Roland Frye
• “Claudius, as he appears in the play, is not a criminal… He is a good and gentle king, enmeshed by the chain of casualty linking him with his crime.” - Wilson Knight
• [Gertrude and Claudius’ relationship is a] rash love affair” - John Cunningham

Question 2

Recall 3 Critical Interpretations relating to Gertrude in Hamlet. Also recall the names of the critics.

Answer 2

• “a woman of exuberant sexuality, who inspires uxorious passion first in King Hamlet and later in Claudius” - Harold Bloom
• [Gertrude and Claudius’ relationship is a] “rash love affair” - John Cunningham
• “Pleasing men is Gertrude’s main interest” - Rebecca Smith
• The Laurence Olivier film version emphasises the Oedipal undertones he believed were present between Hamlet and his mother, even casting a 28-year old Eileen Herlie as Gertrude, while he, playing Hamlet was 44. The inclusion of a bed in Gertrude’s closet and the kissing emphasise these Oedipal undertones further.

Question 3

Recall 5 Critical Interpretations relating to Polonius in Hamlet. Also recall the names of the critics.

Answer 3

• “by far the most reprehensible father [in Shakespeare’s plays]” - Diane Dreher
• “The death of Polonius is a symbol of Shakespeare’s attack on patriarchy.” - Elaine Robinson
• “Polonius seems to love his children; he seems too have the welfare of the kingdom in his mind. His means of actions, however, are totally corrupt.” - Rebecca Smith
• “Trained his daughter to be obedient and chaste and is able to use her as a piece of bait for spying.” - Rebecca Smith
• “Polonius is a man bred in courts, exercised in business, stored with observation, confident in his knowledge, proud of his eloquence, and declining into dotage.” - Samuel Johnson
• “It is said that he acts very foolishly and talks very sensibly.” - William Hazlitt
• “Polonius is not a fool, but he makes himself so.” - William Hazlitt
• “[Polonius is a] Buffoonish Statesman.” - William Sutherland
• In Rupert Goold’s 2025 RSC production of Hamlet, Polonius is shown to immediately comfort Ophelia after she says she has been affrighted - demonstrating that he is a fairly loving father

Question 4

Recall 5 Critical Interpretations relating to Ophelia in Hamlet. Also recall the names of the critics.

Answer 4

• “An element, not of deep tragedy, but of pathetic beauty, which makes analysis of her character seem almost desecration.” - A.C. Bradley
• “Of all the pivotal characters in the story, Ophelia is the most static and one-dimensional.” - Amanda Mallibard
• “Where Hamlet feigns madness, Ophelia actually loses her sanity.” - Amy Licence
• “[Ophelia’s suicide is] a microcosm of the male world’s banishment of the female, because ‘women’ represents everything denied by reasonable men.” - David Levernez
• “Ophelia is deprived of thought, sexuality and language. She represents the strong emotions that the Elizabethans thought womanish.” - Elaine Showalter
• [on the drowning] “Feminine fluidity as opposed to masculine aridity.” - Elaine Showalter
• “Motherless and completely circumscribed to the men around her, Ophelia has been shaped to conform to external desires.” - Gabrielle Dane
• “Madness releases Ophelia from the enforced repressions of the prescribed roles of daughter, sister, lover, subject” - Gabrielle Dane
• “Trapped in a choiceless existence, Ophelia has no choice but to throw herself into the river to drown.” - Jeffrey Wood
• “We can imagine Hamlet’s story without Ophelia, but Ophelia literally has no story without Hamlet” - Lee Edwards
• “Her madness… enables her to assert her being; she is no longer enforced to keep silent and play the dutiful daughter.” - Maurice and Hannah Charney
• “No girl becomes insane because her father dies, least of all Ophelia.” - Roderick Benedix
• In Rupert Goold’s 2025 RSC production, Ophelia falls to the floor and sobs in her madness, demonstrating her grief and distraughtness at her father’s murder.
• In Rupert Goold’s 2025 RSC production, Ophelia bats away her father’s hand from her head as he attempts to do a loving gesture, showing resistance to him.

Question 5

Recall 5 Critical Interpretations relating to Hamlet in Hamlet. Also recall the names of the critics.

Answer 5

• “Hamlet is unable to carry out the sacred duty, imposed by divine authority, of punishing an evil man by death.” - A.C. Bradley
• “Melancholy… defeats all his impulses towards action and increasingly paralyses his will.” - Campbell
• “Hamlet is obliged to act on the spur of the moment” - Coleridge
• “He plays the madman most, when he treats Ophelia with so much rudeness.” - Dr. Johnson
• “Hamlet’s own instincts are towards undoing rather than doing.” - Emma Smith
• “The repressed wish is not only that the father should die, but that the son should then espouse the mother.” - Ernest Jones
• “Hamlet’s form of delay is ‘inertia’, he finds difficulty in starting and coming to a stop.” - Hapgood
• “The fundamental fact about Hamlet is not that he thinks too much, but that he thinks too well.” - Harold Bloom
• “Hamlet’s tragedy is at last the tragedy of personality.” - Harold Bloom
• [Hamlet] “cannot break out of the closed circle of loathing and self contempt.” - L.C. Knight
• “Hamlet… cannot be comprehended except as a study of emotion.” - L.L. Schüking
• “Hamlet is… rather an instrument than an agent” - Samuel Johnson
• “All duties seem holy for Hamlet” - Von Goethe
• [Hamlet is he whose] “powers of action have been eaten up by thought.” - William Hazlitt
• “Hamlet is an element of evil within the state of Denmark.” - Wilson Knight
• “[Hamlet] is in fact the poison in the veins of the community.” - Wilson Knight
• “Hamlet seems obsessed with Gertrude as a sex object.” - Rebecca Smith
• “No reasonable doubt can be felt [on the view that] Hamlet was at one time sincerely in love with Ophelia.” - A.C. Bradley
• [Hamlet sees Gertrude’s action] “not only as an astounding shallowness of feeling but as an eruption of coarse sensuality… his whole mind is poisoned. He can never see Ophelia in the same light again: she is a woman’s, and his mother is a woman.” - A.C. Bradley
• “Hamlet’s disgust at the feminine passivity in himself is translated into violent revulsion against women and into his brutal behaviour towards Ophelia.” - David Levernez

Question 6

Recall 2 Critical Interpretations relating to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Hamlet. Also recall the names of the critics.

Answer 6

• “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern sacrifice the bond of human friendship to a social propriety” - Marilyn French
• “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are a pair of faceless automatons.” - Richard Bright

Question 7

Recall 4 Critical Interpretations relating to Revenge in Hamlet. Also recall the names of the critics.

Answer 7

• “The desire for vengeance is seen as part of the continuing pattern of human conduct.” - Alexander
• “Revenge is not justice. It is rather an act of injustice on behalf of justice.” - Belsey
• “Revenge is always in excess of justice.” - Belsey
• “Revenge exists on a margin between justice and crime.” - Belsey
• “Revengers create their own civil justice.” - Brucher
• “[Hamlet] is paralysed by the futility of the revenge his society demands that he seek.” - Kieran Ryan
• “The Prince of philosophical spectators… he cannot have his revenge perfect… he declines it altogether.” - William Hazlitt

Question 8

Recall 3 Critical Interpretations relating to other themes in Hamlet. Also recall the names of the critics.

Answer 8

• “The audience are entertained because they are asked to see, feel and understand a little more about the hidden springs of action.” - Alexander on Audience Reaction
• “Everything at Elsinore has been corroded by fear: marriage, love, friendship.” - Jan Cott on Fear
• “The play does not offer any conclusions about what is the right response to the questions it poses about human aggression” - Alexander on aggression
• “But for humour he should go mad. Sanity is humour.” - Sir Herbert Tree on madness
• “Articulates a crisis in the decay of traditional social order in England.” - Jonathan Dollimore on social order
• “It’s a play about suffocating sorrow.” - Rosemary Qaugh on the play as a whole