| George Detmold – 1949 Hamlet’s ‘All but Blunted Purpose,’ | ‘And yet he is a great tragic hero.’ |
| George Detmold – 1949 Hamlet’s ‘All but Blunted Purpose,’ | ‘Hamlet [dedicates himself to the pursuit of] moral beauty’ |
| George Detmold – 1949 Hamlet’s ‘All but Blunted Purpose,’ | ‘though he is a long time in killing Claudius, he does kill him at last, and he is capable of other actions which argue the rash and impulsive nature of a man with a strong will.’ |
| Elaine Showalter | ‘Ophelia is often portrayed, in productions, in “decorous style” and as “young, beautiful, harmless and pious”‘ |
| Elaine Showalter | ‘most persistently presented in terms of symbolic meaning’ |
| Ernst Jones | ‘Ophelia should be sensual as she seldom is on stage. She may be innocent and docile, but she is very aware of her body’ |
| Millicent Bell – The Mask of Madness: Identity and Role-playing in Shakespeare’s Hamlet | ‘Hamlet’s desire for suicide […] derives from the discrepancy between what is felt and what is done.’ |
| Millicent Bell – The Mask of Madness: Identity and Role-playing in Shakespeare’s Hamlet | ‘Hamlet’s appearance of madness is a representation of the fragility of that notion of identity in which he has ceased to believe.’ |
| Millicent Bell – The Mask of Madness: Identity and Role-playing in Shakespeare’s Hamlet | ‘in the revenge plays [pretending madness] diverts suspicion while in Hamlet it actually arouses it.’ |
| Rebecca Smith (Feminist critic) | ‘neither structure nor content [of Gertrude’s speeches] suggests the wantonness [attributed to her by the play’s masculine perspective].’ |
| Carol Thomas Neely (Feminist critic) | ‘until her madness, Ophelia scarcely exists outside of men’s use of her.’ |
| Carol Thomas Neely (Feminist critic) | ‘[her suicide] completes Ophelia’s separation from her roles as daughter, sweetheart, subject and from the literal and metaphorical poison which kills the others in the play.’ |
Hamlet – AO5
November 7, 2019