“A Critical History of
Hamlet”
By Kayla Allen, Bryant Kauffman, and Mairead Murphy
The Open-Ended Opportunities Presented
with Hamlet
 Taking Shakespeare’s Hamlet and creatively
reinterpreting it by:
- onstage performances
-paintings
-poetry
-film
• Understanding the critical history and background not
only of the work itself but also the culture of the author.
Praise and Criticism within the
First Folio
-The First Folio was the introduction to the play that
included many important writers tributes to
Shakespeare.
• In the First Folio, Shakespeare:
- Used art and genius (Ben Johnson)
- Was compared to classical and contemporary
dramatists.
- His work rose above culture and historical periods and
is still great even for today’s audience.
Continued….
- Ben Johnson claims that Hamlet was very “natural”
(the nature of humanity, who we are as people, and the
characteristics of our personality that defines who we
are.)
-Ben Johnson also criticized, saying that Shakespeare
never scribbled out his work. Johnson says that
crossing out shows “hard work and stylistic revision.”
Criticism of Hamlet in the 17th and 18th
Centuries
- Hamlet praised for “heroism” (Betterton)
- Hamlet was able to expose ordinary human emotions
through intensified circumstance. (Betterton)
- Hamlet praised for “variety” (Johnson)
- Hamlet lamented for “inconsistency” (Gentleman)
- Hamlet was “irresolute” meaning he couldn’t make up
his mind. (Boswell)
- Hamlet wanted “strength of mind” (Boswell)
Continued
 Hamlet is seen as sensitive; the “Age of Sensibility”
(Mackenzie, Goethe)
 Shift from the plot to character
 Romantics shift from focus of Hamlet as entertainment to
thought provoking and discovery of self.
 Hamlet’s “intellectual power” is emphasized; the old view of
the overly contemplative Hamlet is reborn. (Coleridge)
 Hamlet delays in his actions because he thinks too much
and contemplates what he does. (Coleridge)
Continued….
 Hamlet’s intellect and philosophical questions inspired
reader’s to “ponder the great questions of human
existance.” (Coleridge-Schlegel)
 Hamlet takes his own problems and generalizes it to all
of humanity. (Hazlitt)
Hamlet
• Hamlet’s Romantic persona:
-rebellious
-philosophical
-secluded
• Famous questions asked about the play:
-Why does Hamlet delay?
- Hamlet suffered from a deep “abnormal and morbid
melancholy” that prevented him from acting.
(Shakespearean Tragedy, Bradley)
Continued…
 Bradley’s Shakespearean Tragedy is significant
because it summed up the views of the 18th century
and prepared an arguing ground for the 20th century.-
The Freudian Response
 Freud first uses Hamlet in his own psychoanalysis and
in his book The Interpretation of Dreams.
 “Uses Hamlet as a figure for dreams themselves, the
very medium through which he believes he can gain
access to the unconscious.” (Freud)
 Freud says that Hamlet behaved the way we often do
in dreams, so by studying Hamlet, we can learn more
about dreams. (Freud, Interpretation of Dreams 480481)
 Freud differentiates between Oedipus the King and
Hamlet.
Freud Continued….
 Freud differentiates between Oedipus the King and
Hamlet:
-Hamlet is more repressed than Oedipus because civilization
has become more repressed.
- Freud believes that a real event inspired Shakespeare to
create the character of Hamlet.
- According to Freud, Shakespeare felt an unconscious
connection to Hamlet because he experienced similar
things.
-Hamlet is not acting and taking revenge for his father’s
death because he considered taking the same action
against his father. Hamlet felt an unconscious sexual
affection for his mother. (Freud)
Continued….
 Some people believe that Freud used Hamlet’s
melancholy as the basis for his diagnosis for
melancholy in his own patients.
 Freud and Bradley focus on Hamlet’s madness was
very similar to that of the 16th and 17th centuries.
 In the 16th and 17th centuries, the madness was
represented much more violent than in more recent
times.
 People wanted to see the play purely to witness the
insanity of Hamlet.
Oliver’s Film
 Oliver’ film incorporates the Freud-Jones theory in his
1947 version of the play. Those elements were:
-erotic treatment of the relationship between Hamlet and
Gertrude.
-attribution of Hamlet’s delay to an implicit comparison
between himself and Claudius.
-brought out sexual tensions between Gertrude and
Hamlet. (casting gertrude to 27, and Hamlet 40)
-Oliver’s Hamlet is: romantic, sublime, intellectually
brilliant, and courageous but ultimately isolated.
(Susanne L. Wolford, 193)
th
20
Century Responses to
Hamlet
 “Much of the twentieth-century Hamlet criticism can be understood
as an effort to “disengage the play from its Romantic associations
and reach an independent assessment” (Hunter 31)
• Eliot deems Hamlet as an aesthetic failure. (aesthetic means
nature, culture, art, beauty)
 Eliot does not think that Gertrude was “evil” enough to cause
Hamlet such anger and frustration.
 He criticized the lack of causes for the emotions of Hamlet.
 Eliot believes basically that Hamlet overreacted to everything. If
Gertrude had in fact been “so bad” than Hamlet would have been
a success.
Continued….
 Dover Wilson claims to have found proof of an affair
between Gertrude and Claudius before the death of the
king, therefore making Gertrude sexually impure, and
giving Hamlet reason to be angry. Wilson deems play a
success.
 Rose believes that “sexual femininity” becomes the
scapegoat of the play.
Arguing with Bradley
 Play rose out of Elizabethan sources
 Insisted on putting Hamlet back into the play, and to
study the play again as a whole, not just as Hamlet the
character.
 Look at symbolism of the play as a whole, not just as
the characters separately.
 Knights and Knight attributed to these views.
Knights and Knight
 L.C. Knights argues against psychological criticism
 He claims that critics can’t imagine a character from the
play to answer questions that the play doesn’t answer
in order to understand a character better.
 G. Wilson Knight argues that we should pay more
attention to themes and images in order to put Hamlet
back in his own dramatic environment.
 Knight emphasized reading Hamlet as reading a long
poem.
Mid-20th Century Responses
 “By the 1950s, critical interest had shifted toward the
poetic and the metaphysical, toward the mysteriousness
of life and toward a focus on mortality.
 Mack believes that Hamlet was made up of riddles.
 He believes that Hamlet had an interrogative attitude and
was constantly asking questions.
 Hamlet always seemed “anguished and alarmed.” (Mack)
Continued….
 Shift from emphasis on a Romantic Hamlet to a
“philosophical meditation on death itself.”
 Knight says that mortality is the play’s real focus and
Hamlet himself is a death bringer.
 Believes Hamlet “infected” the kingdom with his
“diseased consciousness.”
 Knight believes Hamlet’s sarcasm and negation are his
own poison.
 Hamlet is the source of his own disease.
Hamlet the Bad Guy
 Mallarme said that Hamlet is “a killer who kills without
concern, and even if he does not do the killing-people
die. The black presence of this doubter causes this
poison, of which all the characters die.”
 Hamlet “scatters death like a universal plague” (Mark
Van Doren)
The Play within the Play
 Hamlet also carried criticism about “theatricality” or
metatheatrical self-consciousness (theater about
theater)
 The play put on by the travelers and Hamlet’s speech
to them are seen as “touchstones for interpretation”
The Traditions
 Psychological”
-focuses on Hamlet’s disgust toward women, especially as sexual
beings.
• Historical Criticism:
-“effort to try to discover what the Elizabethan issues in the play were.
(Moral, religious questions about revenge, fate, and free will.
• Performance criticism:
- “treats the play not as material for interpretation but as a work of art
that has its own separate, powerful, and primary existence on the
stage.”
The End
“Hamlet will continue to puzzle and possess the minds
of future generations, who can make the play their own
only by in turn taking critical possession of it.
‘Remember me!’ says the play, and we will not forget.
Susanne L. Wofford