Hamlet - negative criticism, quotes from famous writers.

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NEGATIVE CRITICISM ON HAMLET

Voltaire (1752)

Dr. Johnson's Criticism 1756 (partially negative)

Eliot “Hamlet and His Problems,” (1919)

“the play is most certainly an artistic failure.” […] “Hamlet (the man) is dominated by an emotion which is inexpressible, because it is in excess of the facts as they appear. . . . We should have to understand things which Shakespeare did not understand himself.”

Hamlet's Character Viewed As Evil

“in which Hamlet, represented as a virtuous character, is not content with taking blood for blood, but contrives damnation for the man that he would punish, is too horrible to be read or to be uttered.”

G. Wilson Knight The Wheel of Fire (1930)

“Hamlet is inhuman. He has seen through humanity. And this inhuman cynicism, however justifiable in this case, on the plane of causality and individual responsibility, is a deadly and venomous thing. Instinctively the creatures of earth - Laertes, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, league themselves with Claudius: they are of his kind. . . . But Hamlet is not of flesh and blood, he is a spirit of penetrating intellect and cynicism and misery, without faith in himself or any one else, murdering his love of Ophelia, on the brink of insanity, taking delight in cruelty, torturing Claudius, wringing his mother's heart, a poison in the midst of the healthy bustle of the court. He is a superman among men. And he is a superman because he has walked and held converse with Death, and his consciousness works in terms of Death and the Negation of Cynicism. . . . Thus Hamlet is an element of evil in the state of Denmark. . . . Not till it has slain all, is the demon that grips Hamlet satisfied. And last it slays Hamlet himself: 'The spirit that I have seen / May be the devil. . . .' It was.”

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Bernard Grebanier's The Heart of Hamlet (1960) A “Healthy” Hamlet

“To know how Hamlet feels about life we must watch not what he says about it so much as what he does living it. Look at him in this way, and you will find him not melancholy, not complex - ridden, not pessimistic, not even disillusioned basically - but a healthy, vigorous man, much in love with life, who, given the slightest opportunity, is happy, cheerful, companionable, and kind.”

Hamlet as an example of Aristotle's model tragic hero:

Goethe's Interpretation Of Hamlet As Nobly Weakwilled (1796)

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