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Flashcards in Hamlet Critics Deck (24)
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1
Q

Aristotle

What did neo-classicists say about Aristotle and hamlet?

A

“Tragedy is the imitation of action”

Neo-classicists such as Thomas Ryder criticised Hamlet for not following Aristotle’s dramatic theory

2
Q
Thomas Hanmer (1736)
(Hamlet’s cruelty towards Claudius praying)
A

“so unworthy of a hero”

3
Q

Thomas Hanmer 1736

Hamlet’s lack of action

A

“If Hamlet had not delayed, there would have been an end to our play”

4
Q

Dr Johnson 1765

Hamlet’s character

A

“A man overwhelmed with the magnitude of his own purposes”

5
Q
William Hazlitt (Romantic)
(Hamlet as Everyman)
A

“it is we who are Hamlet”

6
Q

Samuel Coleridge - Romantic critic

Hamlet

A

“[Hamlet] is an intellectual who thinks too much and can’t make up his mind”

7
Q

Lamb - Romantic critic

Hamlet

A

“Shy, negligent, retiring Hamlet”

8
Q

Goethe (Romantic)

Hamlet’s actions

A

“the effects of a great action laid upon a soul unfit for the performance of it”

9
Q

Henry Mackenzie - Romantic critic

Hamlet

A

“With the strongest purposes of revenge, he is irresolute and inactive”

10
Q

Catherine Belsey 1979

Revenge

A

“Revenge exists in the margin between justice and crime”

11
Q

Freud - 20th C critic

(Hamlet) - x2 quotes

A

“Oedipus complex”

“Hamlet sees himself mirrored in his uncle and doesn’t want to kill a part of himself”

12
Q
AC Bradley (20th C)
(Hamlet’s delay)
A

“a man who at any other time and in other circumstances… would have been perfectly equal to his task”

13
Q

C.S. Lewis - 20th C critic

Hamlet

A

“An Everyman character who is haunted by original sin and fear of death”

14
Q
Dover Wilson (20th C)
(Ghost)
A

Hamlet and audience are “left with uncertainty about the ‘honesty’ of the Ghost”

15
Q

G. Wilson Knight (20th C)

Denmark

A

“Hamlet is an element of evil in the state of Denmark”

16
Q

Richardson - Romantic critic

Whole play

A

“Dramatising the conflict between a sensitive individual, and a calloused, seamy world”

17
Q

David Leverenz - late 20th C critic

Ophelia’s death

A

“Ophelia’s suicide is a microcosm of the male world’s banishment of the female”

18
Q
John Holloway (Marxist)
(Tragedy)
A

“it is less a political tragedy and much more in the wider sense a domestic one”

19
Q
JW Lever (Marxist)
(Tragedy)
A

“the fundamental flaw is the world they inhabit: in the political state”

20
Q
Linda Bamber (Feminist)
(Ophelia)
A

Ophelia is not fully developed = just an artistic device to indicate Hamlet’s psychological state

21
Q
Rebecca Smith (Feminist)
(Polonius)
A

“Polonius seems to love his children; he seems to have the welfare of the kingdom in mind. His means of actions, however, are totally corrupt”

22
Q
Rebecca Smith (Feminist)
(Polonius’s nature towards Ophelia)
A

“Trained his daughter to be obedient and chaste and is able to use her as a piece of bait for spying”

23
Q
Emi Hamana (21st C)
(Ophelia)
A

“suffers a series of patriarchal oppressions“

24
Q
Alan Sinfield (Historicist)
(Religion)
A

believes play is shaped by confusion of conflicting Catholic and Protestant beliefs at the time