This document includes a wide range of critic quotes for the characters: Hamlet, Claudius, Old Hamlet, Ophelia, Gertrude, Polonius, Horatio and other general critics. It includes a wide range of critics, both modern and contemporary which is what the examiners are interested in. Most of them includ...
Hamlet Critic Quotes
Hamlet
Critic Quote Critic Reference Thematic Link Commentary number
‘I’m figuring his father as mole. Hamlet enacts a Marxist Shakespeares, DEPRESSION Hamlet undergoes a transformation 1
radical metamorphosis: from human to animal; 2001 towards more animalistic as he begins
from omnipotent monarch to blind burrower; from POWER to suspect foul murder from his uncle.
ideological figurehead to a worker in the ground’ Peter Stallybrass This transformations is representative
of Hamlet’s loss of power and control
(from monarch to a laborer in the
ground)
Hamlet’s transformation = Hamlet’s
loss of power (a metaphor)
Hamlet starts to lose his humanity –
starts to become irrational and more
instinctual – which is consistent with
the idea that he is losing control of his
own mind
Act 1 Scene 5 Line 189-90 (O cursed Spite//That Wilhelm Meister’s DELAY 2
ever I was born to set it right) hold ‘ the key to Apprenticeship, 1796
Hamlet’s whole procedure…The effect of a great
action laid upon a soul unfit for the performance of Goethe
it’
“the only intractable problem in the way of a Stephen Gurr POLITICAL CORRUPTION The play’s central conflict arises from 3
peaceful and prosperous rule is young Hamlet. He is 1992 Hamlet’s presence and his refusal to
the only discordant note in the well-orchestrated accept new order under the new king.
Claudian world”
, Hamlet’s presence and his struggle
against Claudius and his own inner
turmoil, disrupt the stability of the
new monarch
‘His wit has both a princely elegance that adds to Stanley Wells TRAGEDY Hamlet’s wit serves two purposes: 4
the sense of waste evoked by his destruction 2003
and a savage intellectuality that defines his It shows us that his intelligence is a
complete waste due to his tragic
isolation from those around him and serves as
impending destruction
a weapon against hypocrisy and deception.’
His wit also sets him apart from
everybody else in the play. This allows
him to see through the lies and deceit
of those around him, which allows
him to expose their hypocrisy and
reveal the truth.
After Hamlet says “now I am alone” a light goes on Nicholas Hytner DECEPTION 5
in the background, which reminds the him as well as adaptation, 2010
the audience that he is permanently watched. SURVEILLANCE
A man whose intellectual energy and alertness Samuel Taylor Coleridge DELAY The critic 6
made action impossible; he sensed a ‘smack of
Hamlet’ in himself
“surely it is clear that, whatever we…may think AC Bradley 1904 The critic suggests that regardless of 7
about Hamlet’s duty, we are meant in the play to what the audience and readers may
assume that he ought to have obeyed the Ghost” personally believe about Hamlet’s
actions, the play itself seems to be
implying that Hamlet has a moral
obligation to fulfil the Ghost’s request
‘his chief desire is not…to ensure his mother’s… AC Bradley 1904 PARENTHOOD/ Hamlet wants to save his mother from 8
acquiescence in his design of revenge; it is to save TRADITION the spiritual consequences of her
, her soul. And while the rough work of vengeance is incestuous marriage and compliance
repugnant to him, he is at home in this higher work’ with evil.
This suggests that Hamlet is motivated
by a sense of duty and compassion
rather than a desire for personal gain
or satisfaction that he would feel after
murdering Claudius
‘It…is a play dealing with the effects of a mother’s T.S Elliot 1919 The play is not just a straightforward 9
guilt upon her son…Hamlet is dominated by an revenge tragedy but a deep
emotion which is inexpressible because it is in psychological exploration of the
excess of the facts as they appear’ human psyche and the effects of guilt
and trauma on an individual.
The central conflict of the play
revolves around Hamlet’s emotional
response to his mother
Also, it suggests that Hamlet’s
emotions are so intense and
overhwelmign that they are so
difficult to actually express (in excess
of the facts they appear) – so
basically, his emotions are so much
more complex than what people are
able to make surface-level evaluation
on.
‘Hamlet is an inhuman-or superhuman- presence, Wilson Knight 1930 10
whose consciousness – somewhat like
Dostoyevsky’s Stavrogin – is centred on death. Like
Stavrogin, he is feared by those around him. They
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