hamlet early critcial quotes (1660-1870)

Question 1

Collier about Ophelia

Answer 1

‘[the depiction of Ophelia is] lewd and unreasonable’

1698

Question 2

Hanmer about Hamlet

Answer 2

‘Hamlet’s conduct [is] cruel… there is something very bloody in it, so inhuman, so unworthy of a hero’

1736

Question 3

Johnson about Hamlets treatment towards Ophelia

Answer 3

‘he treats ophelia with so much rudeness, which seems use,ess and wanton cruelty’

1765

Question 4

Johnson about Hamlet

Answer 4

‘Hamlet is rather an instrument than an agent’

1765

Question 5

Wolfgang vin Goethe about Hamlet

Answer 5

‘whose power of direct action is paralysed by an excessive development of intellect’

1795

Question 6

Hazlitt on Hamlets action taking

Answer 6

‘’seems incapable of deliberate action and is only hurried into extremities on the spur of the occasion when he has no time to reflect’

1817

Question 7

Hazlitt on Hamlets revenge

Answer 7

‘because he cannot have his revenge perfect … he declines it altogether’

1817