Hamlet: Mortality/decay

Question 1

Ophelia paintings?

Answer 1

Delacroix (1844)

John Everett Millais (1851)

Question 2

Ophelia, Delacroix?

Answer 2

1844 - sexualized portrayal, half clothed

Question 3

Ophelia, John Everett Millais?

Answer 3

1851 - not sexualized, romantic portrayal

Question 4

Polonius death painting?

Answer 4

Delacroix 1835
Hamlet standing over corpse, unfeeling + unbothered, perhaps happy

Question 5

Ghost painting?

Answer 5

William Blake 1806
Hamlet kneeling before supernatural figure, fearful, eerie, ghost is inhuman + sickly

Question 6

Ghost painting 2?

Answer 6

Fuseli 1775
Ghost as powerful + domineering
Supernatural

Question 7

Critic on grave diggers?

Answer 7

“H responds to their nasty vulgarities in silliness no less disgusting” - Voltaire (1748)

Question 8

“Ophelia’s death as beautiful, natural and eroticized”

Answer 8

Carol Thomas Neely 1991
(Ophelia death)

Question 9

Act 1 quotes (decay)

Answer 9

“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark”
“Bodes some strange eruption to our state”