Other Early 20th Century Responses to Hamlet
English Lit: OCR A Level - Hamlet, topic 7.2.2
Other Early 20th Century Responses to Hamlet
Other prominent critics in the early decades of the 20th century treated Hamlet as a psychological study - as if Hamlet was a real person rather than a construct in a drama.
Coleridge on Hamlet's character
- Hartley Coleridge advised that we should “consider Hamlet as a real person”.
- The question of delay was also considered the central ‘problem’ of the play.
Bradley on Hamlet
- A.C. Bradley’s Shakespearean Tragedy (1904) was especially influential.
- Bradley saw the prince as suffering from a psychological disorder – a depression or “melancholy” – which also had the figure of Gertrude at its root cause.
- Hamlet’s suicidal feelings result from his mother’s behaviour or what Bradley describes as “the moral shock of the sudden ghastly disclosure of his mother’s true nature”.
Impact of Gertrude's incest
- Gertrude’s “incestuous wedlock" results in Hamlet's whole mind being "poisoned” against all women.
- This leads to his treatment of Ophelia: “He can never see Ophelia in the same light again: she is a woman, and his mother is a woman”.
- Hamlet judges Ophelia by what he takes to be his mother’s standards and is overcome with feelings of disgust.
TS Eliot on Gertrude
- TS Eliot also placed Gertrude at the heart of his criticism of the play.
- In a 1919 essay, he argued that the play was an “artistic failure” because Hamlet’s “disgust is occasioned [caused] by his mother” but Gertrude is so “insignificant” a character that she cannot convincingly be represented as a plausible cause of Hamlet’s feelings.
- In failing to develop Gertrude as a character, Shakespeare cannot convince the audience that she is the cause of the intense feelings of disgust felt by her son.
Test yourself on Other Early 20th Century Responses to Hamlet
Who is a root cause of Hamlet's "melancholy", according to A.C. Bradley?