100% satisfaction guarantee Immediately available after payment Both online and in PDF No strings attached
logo-home
Hamlet Critical Interpretations Notes $9.93   Add to cart

Other

Hamlet Critical Interpretations Notes

 13 views  0 purchase
  • Course
  • Institution
  • Book

Notes on critical interpretations from multiple critics perfect for A05 in a Hamlet part B Essay

Preview 2 out of 6  pages

  • August 24, 2023
  • 6
  • 2023/2024
  • Other
  • Unknown
avatar-seller
Hamlet Revisionhttps://www.stuvia.com/en-gb/doc/1175422/the-play-hamlet-proves-
revenge-to-be-a-worthless-cause.

Hamlet and the Scanning of Revenge – Paul Gottschalk

 ‘The play revolves around the prince’s trying on of identities’
 ‘Hamlet accepts cowardice merely as a hypothesis confirmed in some degree by fact’
– when Hamlet says he is ‘pigeon-livered and lack gall’
 The psychoanalytical interpretations of Freud and Ernest Jones are based upon the
assumption that Hamlet secretly harbours the same incestuous desire that Claudius
has acted upon
o But what the psychoanalysts adduce a priori is already implicit in the text:
Hamlet sees himself as a sinner among sinners
 In assuming the role of villain and planning Claudius’ eternal damnation, Hamlet is
tactically condemning himself as well – which is what he has been doing all along
 The Ghost is concerned with the spiritual health of his nation, his son, and his queen;
‘he shows no private thirst to see Claudius suffer what Claudius has made him suffer’
– the Ghost says ‘Against thy mother aught. Leave her to heaven’
o However, Hamlet does not leave Gertrude alone, instead he continues to
condemn her for marrying Claudius

Historical Critical Approaches

Renaissance Period

 By the early Jacobean period, the play was famous for the ghost and for its
dramatization of melancholy and insanity
 The procession of mad courtiers and ladues in Jacobean drama frequently appears
indebted to Hamlet
 Looking back on Renaissance drama in 1655, Abraham Wright lauds the humour of
the gravedigger’s scene
 There is some scholarly speculation that Hamlet may have been censored during this
eperiod. Theatres were closed under the Puritan Commonwealth which ran from
1640-1660

Restoration

 When the monarchy was restored in 1660, theatres re-opened. Early interpretations,
from the late 17th to the early 18th century, typically showed Prince Hamlet as a
heroic figure
 Shakespeare remained popular not just with mass audience but even with the very
critics made uncomfortable by his ignorance of Aristotle’s unities and decorum
o Aristotle states that in a great tragedy, there should be a unity of time, place
and action – the action of the play should take place in the amount of time it
takes to perform it
o Hamlet is an atypical play because it does not conform to traditional
Aristotelian concepts of the 3 unities

,  In addition to Hamlet’s worth as a tragic hero, Restoration critics focussed on the
qualities of Shakespeare’s language, with Polonius’s fondness for puns and Hamlet’s
use of mean expression receiving particular attention
 Even more important was the question of decorum, which in the case of Hamlet
focussed on the play’s violation of tragic unity of time and place, and on the
characters
 Collier compares Ophelia to Electra, she condemns Shakespeare for allowing his
heroine to become ‘immodest’ in her insanity, particularly in the flower scene. Drake
almost immediately defend Ophelia; Drake describes her actions in the context of
her desperate situation

Early Eighteenth Century

 Criticism of the play in the first decades of the 18 th century continued to be
dominated by the neoclassical conception of plot and character.
o Relying on the classic styles of the ancient Greeks and Romans, it main
characteristic is an emphasis on logic, common sense, properness and
adequate performance in society
 Voltaire’s attach on the play is perhaps the most famous neoclassical treatment of
the play – ‘Shakespeare boasted a string fruitful Genius: he was natural and sublime,
but had not so much as a single Spark of good taste, or new one rule of drama’ ‘one
would think this work was the fruit of the imagination of a drunken savage’
 The ghost scenes were particular favourites of an ae on the verge of the Gothic
revival. Stubbes noted Shakespeare’s use of Horatio’s incredulity to make the Ghost
credible
 In 1735, Aaron Hill, rather than condemning Hamlet’s actions as a violation of
decorum, praised the seeming contradictions in his temperament
 After mid-century, such psychological readings had begun to gain more currency
 The play’s disparate elements were defended as part of a grander design. Walpole
defends the mixture of comedy and tragedy as ultimately ore realistic and effective
than rigid separation would be
 Samuel Johnson echoed Popple in defending Polonius; Johnson also doubted the
necessity of Hamlet’s vicious treatment of Ophelia

Romantic Criticism

 In 1774, William Richardson analysed that Hamlet was a sensitive and accomplished
prince with an unusually refined moral sense; he is nearly incapacitated by the
horror of the truth about his mother and uncle, and struggles against that horror to
fulfil his task. He thought the play should have been ended shortly after the closet
scene, thus saw the play as dramatizing the conflict between a sensitive individual
and a calloused world
 Henry Mackenzie also concludes that the tragedy in the play arises from Hamlet’s
nature; even the best qualities of his character merely reinforce his inability to cope
with the world in which he is placed
 Another change occurred right around the Romantic literary period (19 th century),
known for its emphasis on the individual and internal motive. The Romantic period

The benefits of buying summaries with Stuvia:

Guaranteed quality through customer reviews

Guaranteed quality through customer reviews

Stuvia customers have reviewed more than 700,000 summaries. This how you know that you are buying the best documents.

Quick and easy check-out

Quick and easy check-out

You can quickly pay through credit card or Stuvia-credit for the summaries. There is no membership needed.

Focus on what matters

Focus on what matters

Your fellow students write the study notes themselves, which is why the documents are always reliable and up-to-date. This ensures you quickly get to the core!

Frequently asked questions

What do I get when I buy this document?

You get a PDF, available immediately after your purchase. The purchased document is accessible anytime, anywhere and indefinitely through your profile.

Satisfaction guarantee: how does it work?

Our satisfaction guarantee ensures that you always find a study document that suits you well. You fill out a form, and our customer service team takes care of the rest.

Who am I buying these notes from?

Stuvia is a marketplace, so you are not buying this document from us, but from seller faizaq. Stuvia facilitates payment to the seller.

Will I be stuck with a subscription?

No, you only buy these notes for $9.93. You're not tied to anything after your purchase.

Can Stuvia be trusted?

4.6 stars on Google & Trustpilot (+1000 reviews)

79650 documents were sold in the last 30 days

Founded in 2010, the go-to place to buy study notes for 14 years now

Start selling
$9.93
  • (0)
  Add to cart