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21 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
- 3rd side (hint)
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G Wilson Knight |
"a host of good qualities" |
Describing Claudius in a positive light. Appearance vs Reality (Hamlet and the text attempts to portray Claudius in a negative light with no redeeming features but there are some) |
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HDF Kitto |
" embodiment of the general evil" |
A negative way to describe Claudius, Polonius and Gertrude. Politics - as they are part of the ruling class. |
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Samuel Johnson |
"an instrument rather than an agent" |
Describing Hamlet as inactive. |
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Huw Griffiths |
"a solipsistic play about a solipsistic prince" |
The play and main character are solitary |
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Emma Smith |
"Re-venge like re-membering, takes on the quality of repetition, just as the play repeats images and moments from its own past" |
The play has reoccurring motifs and many parallels |
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James Drake |
"a mind so tender and a sex so weak" |
A description of Ophelia written in 1699 |
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Samuel Johnson |
"no adequate cause, for he does nothing he might not have done with the reputation of sanity" |
Hamlet's plan of feigned madness makes no sense |
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Maynard Mack |
"the problematic nature of reality and the relation of reality to appearance" |
The play has a conflict between appearance and reality |
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Harley Barker |
"a tragedy of inaction" |
To paraphrase, Hamlet is static meaning that the play is too. Interesting events occur offstage. |
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Francis Barker |
"the narrative of Hamlet is nothing but the prince's evasion of a series of personalities offered to him by a social setting" |
Hamlet is uncommmited to any of the roles that society enforces on him such as lover, son, politician ect |
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Arnold Kettle |
"politically he is a machiavel, morally...he is a fishmonger" |
Polonius is not just the bumbling old fool that he is portrayed to be in almost every production - he does have elements of evil and deception. |
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Leonard Tennenhouse |
"It is this support [popular support] that Claudius consistently lacks" |
Claudius and his relation to the common people |
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G Wilson Knight |
"Claudius...is not a criminal" "a good and gentle king, enmeshed by the chain of causality linking him with his crime" |
Claudius is a good king, not a criminal |
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G Wilson Knight |
"Hamlet is a danger to the state" |
Hamlet is the bad guy |
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Frank Kermode |
"obsessed with doubles of all kind" |
Quote has been paraphrased. The essence of the play is doubling |
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Jane Adelman |
"even the extent to her involvement in the murder of her first husband is left unclear" |
Gertrude as an ambiguous character |
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Patricia Parker |
"spying is everywhere in Hamlet, adding to the sense of claustrophobia that pervades the world of the play" |
Spying and confinement |
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Alan Sinfield |
"represents a succumbing to divine will that was not previously present in his character" |
Hamlet sees the pirate ship as a form of divine intervention thus changing his character |
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John Dover Wilson |
"Hamlet is an illusion" |
We, as the audience, are never supposed to understand Hamlet - the character |
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Gabriel Josipovici |
"becomes a letimotif of the play" however "none of these questions is fully answered by the end of the play" |
The importance of the play's first words - "who's there?". The critics poses several questions about who each of the characters are. |
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David Leverenz |
"a play within a play, or a player trying to respond to several imperious directors at once" |
Describing Ophelia in the wider context of metatheater |
