1- Literary periods HAMLET

AN INTRODUCTORY OVERVIEW OF THE NATURE OF CRITICISM

2- criticism of
Hamlet by three
authors from
different periods

3-Using this in
your SAC
 User note
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 The online content requires the computer to be
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 hint: click the photos and hyperlinks for a
slightly longer exploration
 Descriptors
 DESCRIPTOR:
 Highly-developed understanding of viewpoints or
theoretical perspectives. Detailed and carefully-selected
reference to key concepts and terms in the review/essay.
Comprehensive exploration of the values and assumptions underlying
one or more viewpoints on a text. Sophisticated evaluation of
one or more viewpoints. Considered selection and highly-effective use
of textual evidence to support an independent interpretation.
Highly-expressive and coherent development of ideas.

 course outline
 BEFORE WE GO ON...

 When we say ‘criticism’ we are talking about

literary criticism, it is not necessarily value
laden ie. an attack or praise, it is instead- an
analysis of elements of the literary work.
 So ‘the critics’ are offering their understanding
and analysis of Hamlet.
 Time Periods in literature
 Time periods in literature are divided into
categories. Such as the Reformation, Victorian
age, modernist period etc.

 Each category incorporates both a set of

authors who were active at the time and a set
of ideas which were popular at the time.
Periods

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 Shakespeare wrote during the Renaissance and
Reformation.

Analyses of his work have continued through

each period since and so I have chosen three
ideas to discuss from different periods and
different authors.
 Voltaire 1765

Le christianisme est la plus ridicule, la religion la plus

absurde et sanglante qui ait jamais infecté le monde.[33]
(Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd and bloody
 Voltaire
His most famous remark on slavery is found in "Candide", where the hero is horrified
to learn 'at what price we eat sugar in Europe'

 Voltaire's criticisms are widely quoted (largely

inaccurately) He famously wrote a letter to a
man named Bernard Joseph Saurin. Which
reads as follows.
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 This is a useful starting point but is more a

comment than literary criticism. Do you agree
with his views?
TS ELIOT 1888-1965
 BEFORE WE GO ON
What literary periods did TS Elliot 1888-1965, Voltaire
1694-1778 and Oscar Wilde 1854-1900 come from?

Take careful note of the dates and we can open up the

timeline again and find out.

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1- TS Elliot was a critic and writer of the POSTMODERN

PERIOD (c. 1945? onward

2-Voltaire was a writer of the The Enlightenment (Neoclassical)

Period (c. 1660-1790)

3- Oscar Wilde was a writer of the VICTORIAN PERIOD And

The 19th Century (c. 1832-1901)
BACK TO TS ELIOT 1888-1965
 TS Elliot was a famous writer and critic of the post modern period
of literature.

 He most famously wrote (in my opinion)

 The Wasteland
 I. THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding   Lilacs out of the dead

land, mixing   Memory and desire, stirring   Dull roots with spring
rain.   Winter kept us warm, covering          5 Earth in forgetful
snow, feeding   A little life with dried tubers.   Summer surprised
us, coming over the Starnbergersee   With a shower of rain; we
stopped in the colonnade,   And went on in sunlight, into the
Hofgarten,   10 And drank coffee, and talked for an hour
 More importantly Elliot also wrote a famous
criticism of Hamlet called The Sacred Wood
 You should try to read it if you have time.

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Document link

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But in the midst of all these rude
irregularities, which to this day make the
English theatre so absurd and so The versification is
barbarous, there are to be found in
"Hamlet" by a yet greater incongruity variable. Lines like
sublime strokes worthy of the loftiest
geniuses Look, the morn, in russet
mantle clad, Walks o'er
the dew of yon high
eastern hill, are of the
Shakespeare of Romeo
and Juliet.
Harold Bloom
 Bloom
 Bloom referred to the "double sense" of literature, in which
the play is a mirror held up to nature, and yet the reflection
returns only "the mind's meditation on the image." This
notion of duality was a recurrent theme in the lecture.
Bloom brought up a similar conflict within Hamlet himself,
in which his own self-awareness becomes his greatest
obstacle. The driving force of Hamlet's character, according
to Bloom, is his consciousness of his own self-
consciousness. Through the play, he said, Hamlet attempts
purge his own consciousness of its "inwardness."
 Bloom described Hamlet as a literary genius, as one with
the ability to "expand our own consciousness without
deforming it."
 So.. Bloom believes that Hamlet is an
exploration of the idea of a separation between
ones actions and ones thoughts , ones
awareness of the world ‘I need to kill the King’
and the great problem of being aware of ones
thoughts on needing to kill the king. Does this
explain all the soliloquys where Hamlet
struggles with his thoughts on revenge.
 another
 web page on ''doubled' ideas in Hamlet
A cartoon Hamlet 8min