Critics

• Ophelia is deprived of thought, sexuality and laguage - Showalter
• Drowning too was associated with the feminie - Bachelord
• Pleasing men is gertrudes main intertest - smith
• Hamlet never promises to revenge, only to remember - kerrigan
• Hamlet assues without any questioning that he ought to avenge his father - bradley
• Hamlets contemplation of madness has left him vulnerable to control - tome
• the story of moral poisioning - taine
• polonius is a cold hearted devil - walter
• [madness] gives Hamlet the licence of a fool to speak cruel truths
• hamlet is emotionally unstable not insane - campbell
• Hamlet is a man incapable of acting, because he thinks too much - coleridge
• the text never hints that Gertrude know of the murder - Heilbrun
• with the strongest purposes of revenge, he is irresolute and inactive - mackenzie
• He himslef is no better than the sinner whom he is to punish - flint
• the play is endlessly problematic - elliot
• Hamlet's disorder not only transgresses acceptable aristocratic behaviour but can be spoken of as something threatening the well being of the state as well as the individual - flint
• hamlet is haunted, not by a fear of dying but of being dead - lewis
• a poetic and morally sensitive soul crushed bt the barbarous task of murder - goethe, hamlet as a tragic hero
• hamlet 'has no firm belief in himslef or anything' coleridge
• the world of hamlet is a remarkably enclosed one - gardnier
• women are often given the same advice given to servants... chastity, piety and obedience - Bornstein
• Ophelia has no story without hamlet - Edwards
• [Claudius] has the persuasiveness and physical courage of a ruler but is morally empty - Schofield
• He loved Gertrude deeply and genuinely - dawson
• [Claudius] is a machiavellian schemer - hartwig
• horatio is the witness an measure of truth - walter
• horatio is the stoical constant - walter
• hamlets situation is mainly NOT of his own manufacture - mack
• there is much evidence in the play that Hamlet deliberately feigned fits of madness in order to confuse and disconcert the king - Crawford
• Hamlet is haunted not by a physical fear of dying, but of being dead - C.S Lewis
• the cunning lecherousness of Claudius' evil has corrupted the whole kingdom of Denmark - Atlick
• Claudius is a 'slimy beast' - Knights
• Claudius has the persuasiveness and physical courage of a ruler, but is morally empty - Scholfield
• Ophelia is a weak sacrificial victim - Reinhardt
• Laertes becomes a revolutionary, a disorder force - Knight
• the nature of the ghost is intended to be an open question - Alexander
• hamlets chief desire is to save Gertrudes soul - bradley