Theme Quote Critic

Loyalty "And blessed are those/Whose blood and judgement are so well Marilyn French (1981): “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern sacrifice the bond of friendship
commeddled" to a social propriety”

"Give me that man/ That is not passion's slave, and I will wear ROBERT H MORGAN (2007):
him/ In my heart's core, ay in my heart of heart," 3.2 "true friends should come to the aid of distressed companions without a third party's
intervention"
'Laertes, was your father dear to you? What would you "Claudius' expectation to succeed with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern is sufficient
undertake to show yourself indeed, your fathers son more than comment on their friendship for Hamlet and on their intelligence"
in words?' 4.7
STEPHEN SIDDALL (2008)
R+G are 'manipulators and agents'

ALICE MORGAN (2000):

there is no 'definite conclusive evidence that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern acted from
any motives other than those of pure friendship'

William Hudson (1909):

Horatio is a 'very noble character but he moves so quietly in the play."

Harley Granville Barker (1930):

"Hamlet's affectionate welcome of him adds to Horatio's status; and he adds to it himself
by the quiet good sense with which he responds to Hamlet's hysterical treatment of him
after the Ghost's vanishing'

David Bevington (2011):

'friendship emerges as a spiritual bulwark' and
Horatio is the only person Hamlet can 'share abiding love and trust' with

Morality “There’s letters sealed,/And my two schoolfellows,/ who, I trust Goethe (1795):
as I will adders fanged/They bear the mandate” (3.4) “Hamlet is a delicate and tender prince whose soul was unfit to meet the demands for
action laid upon it”
“Or that the everlasting had not fixed his canon ‘gainst self “A poetic and morally sensitive soul crushed by the barbarous task of murder”
slaughter.’’ (1.2) “Hamlet is a young man of “lovely, pure and moral nature, without the strength or nerve
which forms a hero.
“Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings of
outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles.” A.C. Bradley (1904):
(3.1) "Moral repulsion to the deed"
"His whole mind is poisoned"
“A villain kills my father, and for that/ I his sole son, do this Bradley suggests that we might consider the play a "tragedy of moral idealism as much
same villain send/ To heaven” as a tragedy of reflection."

Kenneth Muir (1973):

Claudius as a Monster= “he hath kill’d my king and whored my
mother.”
Claudius Morally weak= “O heavy burden” + ‘May one be
pardoned and retain th'offence? My crown, mine own ambition,
and my queen’
(could link to Hamlet caring more about his own fate-knows if he doesn't kill Claudius
first he will be killed instead). "Hamlet realises that if he does not kill Claudius, Claudius
will certainly kill him"
[Hamlet]" has to work out his own salvation in fear and trembling; he has to make a
moral decision, in a complex situation where he cannot rely on cut-and- dried moral
principles."
Rene Girard (1990):
"Hamlet's greatness lies not in his mere intelligence or ultimate bloodthirstiness, but in
his prolonged revulsion against the ethics of revenge."
"Hamlet is the only real moral agent in the play."
"Hamlet's temporary reluctance to commit murder still looks so outlandish to us that
more and more books are being written in an unsuccessful effort to solve that mystery."
Eleanor prosser (1967):
"We can at least safely assume that the Dane prince himself is deeply disturbed because
he is unable to "sweep to his revenge as fast as he had sworn to do.
Paul cantor (1989):
"from the very beginning he is preoccupied with the after life, because from the very
beginning he is preoccupied with suicide."
"He must consider whether his actions will lead him to be saved or damned"
"He is troubled by the visions of what lies beyond the finite horizons."
"A villain kills my father, and for that I, his sole son do this same villain/ send to heaven"
(3.3)
George Detmold (1949):
According to Detmold a tragic hero has three prominent characteristics: 1) a will-power
that surpasses that of average people, 2) an exceptionally intense power of feeling, and
3) unusually high levels of intelligence.
"Hamlet delays to kill his uncle only because he has little interest in doing so" " His
thoughts are elsewhere"
Branagh (1996):
3.3 (Claudius praying): Hamlet peers through a little screen with gaps in it and quietly
pokes his sword through one of the holes until it reaches the side of Claudius' head as he
prays. He then imagines it brutally piercing Claudius' but is unable to. The camera shifts
to Hamlets eyes and zooms in as his eyes stare and look around in horror (perhaps to
emphasise his inner conflict once again) as his voiceover and suspensory music play
Amanda Mabillard (2000/1999): "Claudius cannot refrain from indulging his human
desires. He is not a monster; he is morally weak."

Comedy “Thrift, thrift, Horatio! the funeral baked meats baked meats:
pastries. Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.” 1.2
”What was I about to say? By the mass I was about to say
something. where did I leave?” (Act 2, Sc 1)
”Tedious old fool”
“Into my grave?”
“I eat the air, promise crammed”
“You are a fishmonger.”
Corruption “this bodes some strange eruption to our state.”
“something is rotten in the state of Denmark”
“O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!...That one many smile,
and smile, and be a villain.” ‘
“tis an unweeded garden/ That grows to seed things rank and
gross in nature” (2.2)
Branagh production (1996): Hamlet stabs Polonius aggressively 5 times (shows he is
decisive)
Ramsay (1865): "In contradistinction to the glorious imagination and mysteriously deep
philosophy of Hamlet, stands the sober common sense of Horatio, but its very contrast
giving greater prominence to,
and heightening the effect of the character of Hamlet'
Kenneth Muir (1973): "[Hamlet] has to work out his own salvation in fear and
trembling; he has to make a moral decision, in a complex situation where he cannot rely
on cut-and- dried moral principles, or on the conventional code of the society in which
he lives' (Horatio= conventional code)
Paul cantor (1989): “Horatio's distinctive set of beliefs helps to highlight Hamlet's”
Herbert Tree (1916): "the firmament of tragedy is made blacker by the jewels of humor
with which it is bestarred. The first words Hamlet sighs forth are in the nature of a pun:"
("A little more than kin, and less than kind.")
William Hazlitt (1817): "Polonius is not a fool, but he makes himself so"
N.B. ALLEN (1943):
"Polonius' advice... is well phrased, while the speaker of it, Polonius, is elsewhere a
foolish old man'.
'Some critics try to raise the character of Polonius to the speech' as they believe
'Polonius had not always been a fool else Claudius would not respect him as he does.
Others believe 'only a vulgarian could admire it [the advice]'
Manfred Draudt (2002): "Polonius is clearly conceived by Shakespeare as a comic
figure."
Susan Synder: "Comedy can be seen as "the grounds from which tragedy develops"
G. Wilson Knight (early 20th century critic 1930s):
"Hamlet has become an element of evil in the state of Denmark."
"Hamlet is in fact the poison in the gains of the community."
"Hamlet is a creatures of another world".
Gregory Doran production (2009):
1.2: soliloquy: Hamlet cries in a crouched feral position near the beginning of his
soliloquy. He grows aggravated as he talks about his mothers infidelity- he stands up and
faces the camera- looks disgusted. Emphases the 'my fathers brother' and with 'most
wicked speed' - draws attention to Gertrude's sin (this is what most affects him)
 “Oh most wicked speed, to post/ With such dexterity to
incestuous sheets” (1.2)
“Foul deeds will rise/ Though all the earth o’erwhelm them to
men’s eyes” (1.2)
“The canker galls the infants of the spring” (1.3)
“A bloody deed? Almost as bad, good mother,/As kill a king and
marry with his brother.” (3.4)
“The harlot’s cheek, beautied with plastering art,/ Is not more
ugly to the thing that helps it/ Than is
my deed to my most painted word” (3.1)
“Tis too much proved, that with devotion’s visage,/ And pious
action, we do sugar o’er/ The devil
himself.’ – (3,1)
“A serpent stung me; so the whole ear of Denmark Is by a forged
process of my death Rankly abused: but know, thou noble youth,
The serpent that did sting thy father’s life Now wears his
crown.” (1.5)
Life after “But that dream of something after death/ The undiscovered
Death/ country from whose bourn/ no traveller returns.” (3.1)
Death
“Or that the everlasting had not fixed his canon ‘gainst self
slaughter.’’ (1.2)
“Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings of
outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles.”
(3.1)
“For in that sleep of death what dreams may come” (3.1)
“A villain kills my father, and for that I, his sole son do this same
villain/ send to heaven” ( 3.3)
“Will you ha' the truth on 't? If this had not been a gentlewoman,
she should have been buried out o'
Christian burial.” (5.2)
Theme of corruption can be seen through the use of the mirror motif- use of cracked
mirrors after act 3 scene 4 (after Hamlet kills Polonius) can be seen as reflective of the
corrupted and fractured state of Denmark.
David Bevington (2011): dualities in Hamlet show the "discrepancy between a
handsome exterior and corrupted inner being."
Kenneth Muir (1973): images of disease are not associated with Hamlet himself, but a
sense of infection surrounds both Claudius's crime and guilt and Gertrude's sin.
Bertram Joseph (1953):
"Claudius is not a mixture of good and bad, he is an evil man who seems good"
REBECCA SMITH (1938): “Polonius seems to love his children; he seems to have the
welfare of the kingdom in mind. His means of action, however, are totally corrupt”.
C.S. Lewis (1940s):
(Hamlet's fear of death/fear of the fate of his own soul) "hamlet is haunted, not by a
physical fear of dying, but of being dead."
"the point of the play is to examine the mystery of human existence."
Paul cantor (1989):
"from the very beginning he is preoccupied with the after life, because from the very
beginning he is preoccupied with suicide."
"He must consider whether his actions will lead him to be saved or damned"
"He is troubled by the visions of what lies beyond the finite horizons."
"Prayer scene in 3.3, Hamlet doesn't act because his religious beliefs intervene... as to
ensure, not just the destruction of Claudius's body, but the damnation of his soul."
Eleanor prosser (1967):
"No matter how righteous a man might think his motives, the act of revenge would
inevitably make him as evil as the injured in the eyes of God."
Claude C.H Williamson (1914):
 "Alas, poor Yorick! — I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite
jest, of most excellent fancy.” (5.1)
Women Laertes’s Lecture: “fear it Ophelia, fear it my dear sister,/And
keep you in the rear of your affection.” (1.3.)
“And now no soil nor cartel doth besmirch/ The virtue of his
will; but you must fear,/ His greatness weighed, his will is not
his own.” (1.3)
“I shall obey, my Lord.”( 1.3)
“Marry a fool, for wise men know well enough what monsters
you make of them.” (3.2)
“O Hamlet, speak no more./ Thou turns’t my eyes into my very
soul,/And there I see such black and grainèd spots/ As will not
leave their tinct.” (3.4)
“frailty, thy name is woman!” (1.2)
“the chariest maid is prodigal enough/ if she unmasks her
beauty to the moon.” (1.3)
“you speak like a green girl.” (1.3)
"Principally in his soliloquies, he reveals himself to us as diffident, nervous,
procrastinating, "a rogue and peasant slave," according to his own account, playing with
the thoughts of suicide and death, and pessimistic to the existence of truth and love and
honour."
Branagh production (1996):
Polonius' death scene: they zoom into his body- perhaps shows the plays obsession with
death
Hamlet stabs Polonius aggressively 5 times (shows he is decisive)
Samuel Johnson (1795): "Ophelia fills the heart with tenderness"
Elaine showalter (1985):
"Hamlet's disgust at the feminine passivity in Himself is translated into violent revulsion
against women and brutal behaviour towards Ophelia."
Ophelia portrayed as "an insignificant minor character"
"Melancholy was fashionable for men, but the condition was much less positively
regarded in women."
"Ophelia is deprived of thought, sexuality, language"
"A central obstacle to affirming Ophelia's existence as an independent character is that
she appears to have no past."
"[Ophelia] appears in only five of the play's twenty scenes; the pre-play course of her
love story with Hamlet is known only by a few ambiguous flashbacks."
William Hazlitt (1817):
Describes Ophelia as "a character almost too exquisitely touching to be dwelt upon" and
called her "a flower too soon faded"
A.C Bradley (1904):
“only in love the heroine is as much the centre of the action as the hero”
"Ophelia is plainly quite young and experienced"
"Gertrude is "a character of ambiguous morality whom we can never fully know"
Zeffirelli production (1990):
"Ophelia's madness is withdrawn and detached, distributing scrap wood, bones and
nails."
Zeffirelli keeps Ophelia's (Helena Bonham Carter) eroticised and childlike image.
Portrayed as a teenage schoolgirl, Bonham-Carter's Ophelia wears Victorian dress. She
has long bond braids and a bonnet on her head, suggesting her infantilisation and sexual
repression. In addition, Bonham Carter's Ophelia is noticeably silent.
Ernest Jones (1929):
 Intensity of Hamlet's repulsion against women in general and Ophelia in particular is a
measure of the "powerful repression to which his sexual feelings are being subjected."

Carolyn Heilbrun (1957):

"The character of Hamlet's mother has not received the critical attention it deserves."
"the queen was not a bad hearted woman, not at all the woman to think little of murder.
But she had a soft animal nature and was very full and very shallow."
"Gertrude was not party to the late king's murder and indeed knew nothing of it, a point
on which the clear evidence of the play is indisputable."
Gertrude is vital to the Plot of the play; "not only is she the mother of the hero, the
widow of the ghost, and the wife of the current king of Denmark".

Baldwin Maxwell (1964):

"Gertrude's role in the play is subordinate, but her role in the story of Hamlet plays a
greater role."
"Gertrude was not only innocent of complicity in the murder of her first husband but
unholy unaware of it."
"Gertrude did not participate in planning in the murder of her husband. She was an
accomplice after the murder, for she did not deny her lover's claim that it was in defence
if her that he had slain his brother."

Gregory Doran production (2009): Presentation of women- "often in the background or

blurred out."

REBECCA SMITH (1938):

Polonius “trained his daughter to be obedient and chaste and is able to use her as a piece
of bait for spying”
"Pleasing men is Gertrude's main interest."

Victor Kiernen (1996):

“Gertrude seems too colourless a woman to be connected with anything as positive as
murder.”

Madness "There assume some other horrible form,/Which might deprive A.C. Bradley (1904):
your sovereignty of reason/And draw you into madness?" His "madness became his doom"
(Horatio) (1.4)
Herbert tree (1916):
"These are wild and whirling words my lord." (Horatio) (1.5) "The key comic element of the play is madness*

"to put an antic disposition on -" (Hamlet) (1.5) Maynard Mack (1952):
"Madness is riddling, how much is real and how much is feigned,"
"Mad for thy love?/My lord I do not know,/ But truly I do fear it." "Antic disposition used to illuminate the truth in his ability to use madness to gain
(Polonius and Ophelia) (2.1) freedom of speech."
"Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbraced:/ No hat upon his
head; his stockings foul'd./ Ungarter'd, and down-gyved to his
ancle:/ Pale as his shirt; his knees knocking each other;/ And
with a look so piteous in purport/
As if he had been loosed out of hell/
To speak of horrors, - he comes before me." (Ophelia) (2.1)
"Something have you heard/Of Hamlet's transformation; so call
it" (Claudius to Rosencrantz and Guilderstern) (2.2)
"I will be brief. Your noble son is mad./Mad call I it, for to define
true madness,/ What is 't but to be nothing else but mad?"
(Polonius) (2.2)
"I have found/The very cause of Hamlet's lunacy." (Polonius)
(2.2)
Millicent Bell (1998):
Hamlet's 'madness' is "feigned to conceal his purposes"
Gregory Doran (2009):
"Get thee to a nunnery": Ophelia is on the verge of tears whilst Hamlet appears to be
frantic and overwhelmed after Ophelia returns the cards. Hamlet's madness appears to
be real as he almost instantly becomes distressed and grabs Ophelia's arms. Ophelia
stretches her arms out as though she fears Hamlet's reaction. A camera zooms into
Hamlet and Ophelia; Hamlet noticed this and says 'where is thy father?' hamlet's
eccentricity is evident
Zeffirelli production (1990):
"Ophelia's madness is withdrawn and detached, distributing scrap wood, bones and
nails."

"that we find out the cause of this effect, /Or rather say, the
cause of this defect, For this effect defective comes by cause."
(Polonius) (2.2)

"You are a fishmonger" (Hamlet) (2.2)

"He is far gone. Far gone" (Polonius) (2.2)

"Though this be madness, yet there is method in't" (Polonius)

(2.2)

"I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is southerly I

know a haw from a handsaw." (Hamlet) (2.2)

"Get thee to a nunnery: why wouldst thou be a breeder of

sinners?" (Hamlet) (3.1)

"I have heard of your paintings too, well enough. God hath given
you one face and you make yourselves another." (Hamlet((3.1)

"madness in great ones must not

unwatched go." (Claudius) (3.2)

"This is the very coinage of your brain. This bodiless creation

ecstasy is very cunning." (Gertrude) (3.4)
 "essentially am not in madness/ But mad in craft." (Hamlet)
(3.4)

"How does Hamlet? / Mad as the sea and wind when both
contend/Which is the mightier" (Gertrude) (4.1)

"The body is with the king, but the king is not with the body. The
king is the king." (Hamlet) (4.2)

"To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day,

All in the morning betime, And I a maid at your window, To be
your Valentine." (4.5)

"He is dead and gone, lady. He is dead and gone, At his head a
green-grass tuft; At his heels a stone." (4.5)

"O he is mad, Laertes." (Claudius) (5.1)

Surveillance "madness in great ones must not unwatched go." (Claudius) REBECCA SMITH (1938):
(3.2) Polonius 'trained his daughter to be obedient and chaste and is able to use her as a piece
of bait for spying
"Behind the arras, I'll convey myself.../ To hear the process"
(Claudius) (3.3) ELIZABETH KLETT (2013):
"nearly every character plays the role of watcher or watched at some point”
"the play's the thing, Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the "Hamlet, like P+C, believes that surveillance can help him "find where the truth is hid
king" (Hamlet) (2.2) but is enraged when other attempt to get at the truth behind his own actions.”
H constantly 'under surveillance' but still 'manages to remain a mystery' so we 'question
"Were you sent for? Is it for your own inclining? Is it a free the efficacy of surveillance'
visitation?" 2.2
STEPHEN SIDDALL (2008)
"Denmark's a prison" 2.2 R+G are 'manipulators and agents'

I'll have these players Play something like the murder of my ALICE MORGAN (2000):
father/Before mine uncle. I'll observe his looks. (2.2) there is no 'definite conclusive evidence that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern acted from
any motives other than those of pure friendship'
"I'll loose my daughter onto him" (2.2)

"I hear him coming. Let's withdraw, my lord" - Polonius (3.1)

"Observe my uncle", "Didst perceive?" (3.2)

 "My lord, he's going to his mother’s closet./Behind the arras I'll
convey myself"..."And tell you what I know" (3.3)
Revenge “I have sworn’t” (1.5)
“I with wings as swift as meditation or the thoughts of love may
sweep to my revenge” (1.5)
“What would he do had he the motive and cue for passion I
have?” (2.2)
“How all occasions do inform against me,/ And spur my dull
revenge.”( 4.4)
“Thus conscience doth make a coward of us all,/ Is sicklier o’er
with the pale cast of thought.” (3.1)
“I embrace it freely./ And will this brother’s wager frankly
play./Give us the foils, come on.” (5.2)
“revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.” (1.5)
“O, from this time forth, My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing
worth!” (4.4)
“Am I then revenged to take him in the purging of his soul, when
he is fit and seasoned for passage? (3.3)
Delay/ ”And now I’ll do it…No”
Indecision
“I have come to whet thy blunted purpose”
“I have that within which passeth show,/These but the
trappings and the suits of woe.” (1.2)
“Am I a coward? “ (2.2)
Samuel Johnson (1765): “Hamlet is rather an instrument than an agent.”
Goethe (1795): Hamlet is “trapped in a world demanding action and is embittered by his
inability to change things.”
William Hazlitt (1817): “Hamlet is not marked by strength of will or even passion, but by
a refinement of thought and sentiment.”
A.C. Bradley (1904): Hamlet “ responds to the Ghost’s commands for action in words but
not in deeds”
C.S. Lewis (1940s): “The hamlet formula: not a man who wants to avenge his father, but
a man who has been given orders by a ghost.”
Harley Granville- Barker (1936): “A tragedy of inaction.”
Rene Girard (1990):
“When we first meet him, young Hamlet is ready for that infliction n and ready to imitate
his own double, Young Fortinbras.”
“Hamlet’s temporary reluctance to commit murder still looks so outlandish to us that
more and more books are being written in an unsuccessful effort to solve that mystery.”
Maynard Mack (1952): Hamlet first struggles against his word, but after the sea voyage,
he accepts his world and we discover a different man.”
George Detmold (1949 “ Hamlet delays to kill his uncle only because he has little
interest in doing so” “ His thoughts are elsewhere”
Hall (
1869): “Laertes and Fortinbras are both representative of action’ and ‘contrast to the
non-activity of the Danish prince”
Bradley: "But the retarding motives acquire an unnatural strength because they have an
ally in something far stronger than themselves, the melancholic disgust and apathy"
Bradley: "The main cause for Hamlet's delay is melancholic disgust and apathy"
Johnson: "Of the feigned madness of Hamlet, there appears no such cause"
Johnson: "Hamlet is an instrument rather than an agent"
 ‘O what a rogue and peasant slave am I” (2.2) Schkegel: "Hamlet has no firm belief in himself, or in anything else"

“My weakness and my melancholy.” (2.2)
“Now might I do it pat, he is a praying.” (3.3)
“Whether ‘it’s nobler in the mind to suffer, or to take arms
against the sea of troubles.” (3.1)
“Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,” (3.1)
“The spirit I have seen/ May be a devil,” (2.2)
“The plays the thing wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the
play,”( 2.2)
“Yet I,/A dull and muddy mettled rascal, peak/ Like John-a-
dreams, unpregnant of my cause/ And can say nothing.” (2.2)
Jones: "Hamlet's moral fate is bound up with his uncle's for good or ill. In reality his
uncle incorporates the deepest and most
buried parts of his own personality, so that he cannot kill him without also killing
himself"
H.A. Taine: "He is not master of his acts; occasion dictates them; he cannot plan a
murder, but must improvise it"
Henry Mackenzie: "With the strongest purposes of revenge, he is irresolute and inactive"
Coleridge: "Hamlet is a man incapable of acting because he thinks too much"
Coleridge: "Hamlet's mind... is constantly occupied with the world within and abstracted
from the world without"

“But I am pigeon liveried, and lack gall” (2.2)

“Thus conscience doth make a coward of us all,/ And thus the

native hue of resolution/ Is sicklier o’er with the pale cast of
thought.” (3.1)

“Up sword. And know thou a more horrid hent/ When he is

drunk asleep, or in his rage/ Or in th'incestuous pleasure of his
bed. “(3.3)

Appearance “Seems, madam! nay it is; I know not "seems."
vs reality
“Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,” (1.2)
“I am mad but north Northwest. When the wing is Southerly, I
know a hawk from a handsaw.” (2.2)
“To put an antic disposition on.” (1.5)
“Give me some light, away!” (3.2)
Samuel Johnson: Of the feigned madness of Hamlet there appears no adequate cause, for
he does nothing which he might not have done with the reputation of sanity
A.C. Bradley: "One would judge that by temperament, he was inclined to nervous
instability, too rapid and perhaps extreme changes of feeling and mood and that he was
disposed to be, for the time, absorbed in the feeling or mood that possessed him,
whether it was joyous or depressed."
Wofford: "Hamlet may as well have been truly insane as well or at least perhaps in the
Elizabethan sense"

“The harlot’s cheek, beautied with plastering art,/ Is not more Mack: "the problematic nature of reality and the relation of reality to appearance"
ugly to the thing that helps it/ Than is my deed to my most
 painted word” (3.1)
“O, villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!” (1.5)
“The play's the thing, Where in I'll catch the conscience of the
king.” (2.2)
“One may smile, and smile, and be a villain” (1.5)
“the devil hath power/ to assume a pleasing shape.” (2.2)
[hamlet to Ophelia]- “Are you honest?… Are you fair?…” (3.1)
“I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God hath given
you one face, and you make yourselves another…It hath
made me mad.” (3.1)
Supernatural "I am thy father's spirit/Doomed for a certain term to walk the
night/ And for the day confined to fast in fires" (1.5)
“For this relief much thanks: Tis bitter cold, And I am sick at
heart.” (1.1)
“this bodes some strange eruptin to our state.” (1.1)
“Angels and ministers of grace, defend us!/ Be thou a spirit of
health or goblin damn’d,” (1.4)
“And there assume some other horrible form,/ which might
deprive your sovereignty of reason,” (1.4)
“I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word Would harrow up thy
soul, freeze thy young blood, Make thy two eyes, like stars, start
from their spheres,” (1.5)
Sexuality “The chariest maid is prodigal enough,/If she unmask her
beauty to the moon: Virtue itself scapes not calumnious strokes”
(1.3)
“A bloody deed? Almost as bad, good mother/ As kill a king and
marry with his brother.” (3.4)
“O shame, where is thy blush? Rebellious hell,” (3.4)
Ghose: “Hamlets life is filled with many identities. However at the end of the play he
realises he has no true identity as a person"
Mack: "The most pervasive of Shakespeare's image pattern evolved around the words
"show", "act" and "play""
Mack: "The play within a play tends to dissolve the normal barriers between the fictive
and the real"
Mack: “In the graveyard scene, death puts the question, what is real? In its irreducible
form and in the end uncovers all appearances"
Freud: “Hamlet was behaving as dreams do in reality, concealing the true circumstances
under a cloak of wit and unintelligibility”
Eleanor Prosser (1967 “ [the] ghost is as malign as we imagine it to be”
Kenneth Branagh production (1997): 1.4-- Ghost’s dramatic entrance and shrouding in
mist to show the mysteriousness of it. Also very dramatic when the ghost appears to
highlight the ghosts importance in the play.
Laurence Olivier (1948): The fog feels alive and at times completely envelops the Ghost,
representing his being otherworldly
A.C Bradley (1904):
"Habitual feeling of disgust at life."
"His whole mind is poisoned"
"Disgust of his mother's lustfulness"
Sigmund Freud (1905):
"He cannot kill Claudius because he identifies with him (Claudius represents the young
boy's desire of killing his father to be with his mother."

“O most wicked speed! To post /With such dexterity to
incestuous sheets!” (1.2)
“The funeral bak’d meats /Did coldly finish fourth the marriage
tables” (1,2)
“Frailty, thy name is woman.” (1.2)
“In the rank swear of an enseamed bed/ stew’d in corruption,
honeying and making love/ over the nasty sty!” & “But go not to
my uncle’s bed, assume virtue if you have it not.” (3.4)
“Let the bloat king tempt you again to bed, pinch wanton on you
cheeks Call you his mouse.” (3.4)
“Such an act/That blurs the grace and blush of modesty,/ Calls
virtue hypocrite” ( 3.4)
“Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast, /With witchcraft of
his wit, with traitorous gifts – O wicked wit and gifts, that have
the power So to seduce! – won to his shameful lust The will of
my most seeming virtuous queen.” (1.5)
"Hamlet is able to do anything -- except take vengeance on the man who did away with
his father and took that father's place with his mother"
Claudius: "The man who shows him the repressed wishes of his own childhood."
"In reality his uncle incorporates the deepest and most buried part of his own
personality, so that he cannot kill him without also killing himself."
T.S Eliot (1921):
Saw the play as an "artistic failure" because Hamlet's reactions are too strong in
comparison to the cause of his distress (mother's 'o'erhasty marriage')
“Hamlet is up against the difficulty that his disgust is occasioned by his mother, but that
his mother is not an adequate equivalent for it; his disgust exceeds her.”
John Dover Wilson (1935):
"Gertrude's incest was sufficient cause for Hamlet's morbidity"
Gertrude is a "sexually guilty woman."
Laurence Olivier Production (1948):
"An obvious Oedipal relationship was introduced with a lingering mouth to mouth miss
between them" (Hamlet's delay based on Oedipus complex).
Elaine Showalter (1985):
"Hamlet's disgust at the feminine passivity in Himself is translated into violent revulsion
against women and brutal behaviour towards Ophelia."
"Ophelia is deprived of thought, sexuality, language"
Zeffirelli production (1990):
Oedipal desires of hamlet are emphasised in the act 3 scene 4 closet scene- Hamlets
suggestive movements on too of his mother. He is often violent and aggressive with her-
shaking her.
5.2 Hamlet dies besides his mother
Ernest Jones (1929):
"Hamlet's problem is that he has an unresolved Oedipus complex. He can't kill Claudius
because he did a deed he subconsciously wanted to do." (Supported by Olivier's
production (1974) where Hamlet kisses his mother on the lips.
"Hamlet has a deeper loathing for Claudius' incest with the queen than the murder of his
own father."
Jealousy over Claudius for doing what he wanted to do- rather than rage at Claudius'
murder of his father.
Hamlet makes frequent comments about his mother's sexuality
Hamlet has "repressed feelings to take his father's place in his mother's affection."