Hamlet critics
Study online at https://quizlet.com/_d1iu9p
"Elsinore's court is too small a mousetrap
Harold Bloom (mousetrap) to catch Hamlet, even though he volun-
tarily returns to it, to be killed and to kill"
"But Hamlet is scarcely the revenge
Harold Bloom (revenge tragedy?) tragedy that it only pretends to be. It is
theater of the world"
The Ghost is a warrior fit for Icelandic
Peter Alexander (Ghost v Son) saga, while the prince is a university in-
tellectual, representative of a new age"
Hamlet is Dionysian- "Knowledge kills
Nietzsche (Dionysian vs Apollonian)
action"
"Hamlet lacks faith in God and in him-
self. Consequently he must define his
existence in terms of other, e.g I am the
man whose mother married his uncle
Auden (criticism of Hamlet the man) who murdered his father. He would like
to become what the Greek tragic hero is,
a creature of situation. Hence his inability
to act, for he can only "act", i.e., play at
possibilities"
Shakespeare tried to impose his idea
of what the play should've been, onto
what was a pure revenge story originally.
"artistic failure" "Mona Lisa"-> crisis of
T.S Eliot (failure)
composition- wrestling with the source
materials and not getting it quite right- is
what makes it fun to watch. not a work of
art
"The levity of Hamlet.. his puns, are not
part of a deliberate plan of dissimulation,
but a form of emotional relief. In the char-
acter Hamlet it is the buffoonery of an
T.S Eliot (madness)
emotion which can find no outlet in ac-
tion; in the dramatist it is the buffoonery
of an emotion which he cannot express
in art".
1/2
Study online at https://quizlet.com/_d1iu9p
"Elsinore's court is too small a mousetrap
Harold Bloom (mousetrap) to catch Hamlet, even though he volun-
tarily returns to it, to be killed and to kill"
"But Hamlet is scarcely the revenge
Harold Bloom (revenge tragedy?) tragedy that it only pretends to be. It is
theater of the world"
The Ghost is a warrior fit for Icelandic
Peter Alexander (Ghost v Son) saga, while the prince is a university in-
tellectual, representative of a new age"
Hamlet is Dionysian- "Knowledge kills
Nietzsche (Dionysian vs Apollonian)
action"
"Hamlet lacks faith in God and in him-
self. Consequently he must define his
existence in terms of other, e.g I am the
man whose mother married his uncle
Auden (criticism of Hamlet the man) who murdered his father. He would like
to become what the Greek tragic hero is,
a creature of situation. Hence his inability
to act, for he can only "act", i.e., play at
possibilities"
Shakespeare tried to impose his idea
of what the play should've been, onto
what was a pure revenge story originally.
"artistic failure" "Mona Lisa"-> crisis of
T.S Eliot (failure)
composition- wrestling with the source
materials and not getting it quite right- is
what makes it fun to watch. not a work of
art
"The levity of Hamlet.. his puns, are not
part of a deliberate plan of dissimulation,
but a form of emotional relief. In the char-
acter Hamlet it is the buffoonery of an
T.S Eliot (madness)
emotion which can find no outlet in ac-
tion; in the dramatist it is the buffoonery
of an emotion which he cannot express
in art".
1/2
