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HAMLET INTERPRETATIONS ACROSS TIME - Coggle Diagram
HAMLET INTERPRETATIONS ACROSS TIME
RENAISSANCE/JACOBEAN
concerned with portrayal of madness
Prince Hamlet portrayed as heroic figure
play was famous for its portrayal of melancholy and insanity
Critics focused on Shakespeare's use of 'low' language e.g. 'there's the rub'
Critics unhappy with the 'immodesty' of Ophelia's madness
Elizabethans loved the supernatural elements of the play
Early 18th Century
Critics and actors began to view Hamlet as more flawed and less heroic, a prince unworthy of the responsibility he is made to bear
ROMANTIC PERIOD
Hamlet viewed as more of a rebel against politics
Hamlet as a sensitive individual in a calloused, brutal world
Romantic emphasis on individual and internal motive leads to reinterpretation of Hamlet as an intellectual who thinks too much
LATE 19TH AND EARLY 20TH CENTURIES
Freud and Bradley viewed Hamlet as a real person, and psychoanalysed him as such
Freud = Oedipus complex
Freud thought that Hamlet's madness disguised the truth in the same way that dreams disguise reality
20TH AND 21ST CENTURY INTERPRETATIONS
Feminist re-evaluation of Gertrude and Ophelia
New Historicist views of Hamlet in relation to the Elizabethan context - questions around the succession and the nuclear family as the virgin Elizabeth came to the end of her reign
NEW HISTORICIST/PSYCHOANALYTICAL
New Protestant values of family - patriarchal father, obedient mother and children
There should only be one 'ruler' in the family, like in the state of England - comparison of household structure/dynamics and state dynamics
Once child (if male) becomes a man, he becomes superior to his mother as he inherits his father's property, including his wife - murder of KH before Hamlet maturity complicates Hamlet-Gertrude and Hamlet-Claudius relationship