Women's Part In The History Of Hamlet Criticism

Shakespeare's tragedy, Hamlet, is not only the play most performed on the stage or screen, but also the text most commented and adapted. The ever-changing history of Hamlet criticism itself is well worth the academic research. This thesis attempts to analyze the critical history of Hamlet from the feminist perspective.In the male-constructed history of Hamlet criticism, women were prone to be marginalized. On the one hand, criticism on the female roles used to be considered secondary. The studies of the play Hamlet tended to focus on the hero Hamlet. Comments on Ophelia and Gertrude were also frequently supposed to center on Hamlet. On the other hand, the contribution made by women critics to the critical history of Hamlet did not receive the acknowledgement it deserves, especially the pre-feminist criticism before the explosion of feminist criticism in the 1980s.Inspired by Elaine Showalter's theory, "feminist critique" and "gynocritics", this thesis endeavors to rediscover the forgotten and neglected tradition of feminist criticism on Hamlet and to re-estimate its significance in the historical context. Besides women critics' comments, feminist criticism should also include the interpretations of women players' and women writers'. Therefore, feminist criticism can date back to as early as the 1660s, when first records of women critics and women players can be found.The efforts the modern feminists made to reestablish the tradition of feminist criticism on Hamlet, however, has not been embodied sufficiently in the male-constructed critical history of Hamlet. By comparing several made-edited modern versions, this thesis reaches the following conclusion: it is the male-dominated evaluation system that used to impact on the estimation of early feminist criticism, and still influences the full recognition of the modern feminists' achievements.