Hamlet Critical Quotes Flashcards
(36 cards)
Lee Edwards on Ophelia
“We can imagine Hamlet’s story without Ophelia, but Ophelia literally has no story without Hamlet’
Elaine Showalter on Ophelia (2)
- “The Romantic Ophelia feels too much, as Hamlet thinks too much; she drowns in a surfeit of feeling.”
- “She appears in only 5 of the plays 20 scenes, and her tragedy is subordinate to that of Hamlet.”
Eli Siegel on Ophelia
“Ophelia is one of the least self-critical beings imaginable”
Emi Hamana on Ophelia
“Suffers a series of patriarchal oppressions”
Toshiko Oshio on Ophelia
“Inability to express herself by means to words”
Rebecca Smith on Ophelia
“Only concern is pleasing others”
Marguerite Tassi on Gertrude
“in fulfilling her tragic role, the end crowns all; in the final moments of her life, she performs an extraordinary act that gives Hamlet motive and cue for killing the King’
GF Bradby on Gertrude
“a character of ambiguous morality whom we can never fully know”
TS Eliot on Gertrude
“negative and insignificant”
Tamara Tubb on Gertrude’s character
“the true nature of her character and motivation is ambiguous.”
Michael Pennington on Polonious (3)
“a bad parent”
“made palatable by the fact that he is funny”
“between knave and fool, most performances fall to one side or the other”
Richard Altick on Claudius
“the cunning and lecherousness of Claudius’ evil has corrupted the whole kingdom of Denmark”
Carla Stockton on Claudius
“clearly the antagonist”
LC Knights on Claudius
a “slimy beast” with “unctuous verse rhythms”
Samuel Johnson on Polonious
“knowing in retrospect and ignorant in foresight.”
Frank Kermode on the play itself (2)
“obsessed with doubles”
“shifting register not only of action but also of language”
Voltaire on the play itself
“a vulgar and barbarous tragedy”
Harold Bloom on the play itself
“after four centuries, is still the most experimental play ever written,”
Harold Bloom on characterisation
“before Shakespeare there was characterisation, after Shakespeare there were characters.”
Linda Charnes on characterisation
“no-one in this play knows or understands anyone else.”
Sigmund Freud on Hamlet’s delay
“the play is built up on Hamlet’s hesitations over fulfilling the task of revenge that is assigned to him; but its text offers no reasons or motives for these hesitations”
Harold Bloom on Hamlet (3)
Death, Melancholy, Character
“I set aside the prevalent judgment that the deepest cause of his melancholia is his mourning for the dead father and his outrage at his mother’s sexuality,”
“For Hamlet himself, death is not tragic but an apotheosis.”
“the hero-villain”
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE on Hamlet
“A pure, noble, highly moral disposition, but without the energy of soul which constitutes the hero, sinks under a load which it can neither support nor resolve to abandon. All his obligations are sacred to him, but this alone is above his powers. An impossibility is required at his hands–not an impossibility in itself, but that which is so to him.”
Sean McEvoy on Claudius as a good King (3)
“Claudius can be seen to be an effective, modern rule”
“a strong monarch, like Claudius, might well be thought preferable to a weak but virtuous one: and probably better than someone like Hamlet, whose sanity is in doubt and who cannot act with decisiveness.”
“Claudius displays a measured rationality”
