General AO5 critics (can be used in Part B intro)
Voltaire: “Vulgar and barbarous drama”
Tree: “The key comic element of the play is madness”
Prosser: “May not the peculiar power of the play be based to a large
extent on our ability to sympathise with Hamlet and yet judge him
for the course he pursues?”
Tennenhouse: “Hamlet attempts to locate and purge a corrupt
element within the aristocratic body”
Guy: “The preoccupation with decay in Hamlet can be accredited to
a fin de siecle feeling that there was something rotten in the state of
dying Tudor England”
Gardiner: “The society depicted in the play is oppressively narrow
and claustrophobic”
Spurgeon: “The number of images to sickness, disease, the idea of
an ulcer or tumour, as descriptive of the unwholesome condition of
Denmark morally”
Garrick: “No definitive Hamlet”
Olivier’s 1948 adaptation: opened with the lines: “This is the tragedy
of a man who could not make up his mind”
Hamlet throughout history
19th century productions:
● Usually presented romantic interpretations of Hamlet as a
sane, intellectual, sensitive Prince, unable to sweep swiftly
to revenge
● Sets often attempted to create the illusion of a historically
accurate castle of Elsinore, e.g. Kean played Hamlet
between 1814 and 1833, removing much of the blank verse
& replacing it with prose; his attitude to the Ghost was more
one of welcome than of terror, and he also treated Ophelia
with tenderness, rather than bitterness
, ● Booth performed Hamlet in a production at Burton’s theatre in
New York in 1857 - introspective & mild performance,
eschewing the more melodramatic style that was popular at
the time
Modern productions:
● Increasingly portrayed Hamlet as disturbed & alienated, and
have abandoned realistic sets
● Rely more on ‘symbolic’ settings or bare stages with a
minimum of scenery → can be seen as a return to the
conditions of Shakespeare’s own Globe Theatre stage, which
was not dependent on theatrical illusion
● First mention of Hamlet in the play is as ‘young Hamlet’
, 1) Surveillance
QUOTE BANK
● “madness in great ones must not unwatched go.” (Claudius) (3.2)
● “Behind the arras, I'll convey myself.../ To hear the process”
(Claudius) (3.3)
● "the play's the thing, Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the
king"(Hamlet) (2.2)
● "Both your majesties/Might by the sovereign power you have of us/
Put your dread pleasures more into command/ Than to entreaty."
(2.2)
● "Were you sent for? Is it for your own inclining? Is it a free
visitation?" (2.2)
● “Denmark's a prison" (2.2)
● “I'll have these players Play something like the murder of my
father/ Before mine uncle. I'll observe his looks”. (2.2)
● “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 mothers closet. / Behind the arras I’ll
convey myself”…”I’ll call upon you ere you go to bed/ And tell you
what I know” (3.3)
Voltaire: “Vulgar and barbarous drama”
Tree: “The key comic element of the play is madness”
Prosser: “May not the peculiar power of the play be based to a large
extent on our ability to sympathise with Hamlet and yet judge him
for the course he pursues?”
Tennenhouse: “Hamlet attempts to locate and purge a corrupt
element within the aristocratic body”
Guy: “The preoccupation with decay in Hamlet can be accredited to
a fin de siecle feeling that there was something rotten in the state of
dying Tudor England”
Gardiner: “The society depicted in the play is oppressively narrow
and claustrophobic”
Spurgeon: “The number of images to sickness, disease, the idea of
an ulcer or tumour, as descriptive of the unwholesome condition of
Denmark morally”
Garrick: “No definitive Hamlet”
Olivier’s 1948 adaptation: opened with the lines: “This is the tragedy
of a man who could not make up his mind”
Hamlet throughout history
19th century productions:
● Usually presented romantic interpretations of Hamlet as a
sane, intellectual, sensitive Prince, unable to sweep swiftly
to revenge
● Sets often attempted to create the illusion of a historically
accurate castle of Elsinore, e.g. Kean played Hamlet
between 1814 and 1833, removing much of the blank verse
& replacing it with prose; his attitude to the Ghost was more
one of welcome than of terror, and he also treated Ophelia
with tenderness, rather than bitterness
, ● Booth performed Hamlet in a production at Burton’s theatre in
New York in 1857 - introspective & mild performance,
eschewing the more melodramatic style that was popular at
the time
Modern productions:
● Increasingly portrayed Hamlet as disturbed & alienated, and
have abandoned realistic sets
● Rely more on ‘symbolic’ settings or bare stages with a
minimum of scenery → can be seen as a return to the
conditions of Shakespeare’s own Globe Theatre stage, which
was not dependent on theatrical illusion
● First mention of Hamlet in the play is as ‘young Hamlet’
, 1) Surveillance
QUOTE BANK
● “madness in great ones must not unwatched go.” (Claudius) (3.2)
● “Behind the arras, I'll convey myself.../ To hear the process”
(Claudius) (3.3)
● "the play's the thing, Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the
king"(Hamlet) (2.2)
● "Both your majesties/Might by the sovereign power you have of us/
Put your dread pleasures more into command/ Than to entreaty."
(2.2)
● "Were you sent for? Is it for your own inclining? Is it a free
visitation?" (2.2)
● “Denmark's a prison" (2.2)
● “I'll have these players Play something like the murder of my
father/ Before mine uncle. I'll observe his looks”. (2.2)
● “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 mothers closet. / Behind the arras I’ll
convey myself”…”I’ll call upon you ere you go to bed/ And tell you
what I know” (3.3)
