Hamlet As Seen Through The Feminist Critical Lens

Hamlet As Seen Through the Feminist Critical Lens As stated by Tim Gillespie in his text Doing Literary Criticism, the concept of literary criticism is the field of â€Å"interpreting, analyzing, and evaluating† literary works. Thus, literary criticism is not objective; rather, it varies subjectively depending on the critic and the lens, or school, they choose to view the work of literature through. Though the actual content of literature is of extreme importance, the way it is approached is of nearly equal magnitude, as varying approaches open new and insightful views texts previously regarded as static. The feminist lens is one major school of literary criticism. The feminist school has various goals when being used to scrutinize a piece of literature. As Gillespie points out, historically texts were written by males with primarily male protagonists, and thus, the male sentiment is most dominantly expressed in many works of literature. The lessened representation of women in literature is usually confined to typical stereotypes of the historical period. This can be seen in Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, and this will be further explored and discussed. Through the feminist lens, women’s presence and portrayal in the play, as well as the common stereotypes about women in Shakespearean society, can be studied carefully, despite the centuries that have passed between the play’s conception and the present. Additionally, as stated in Literary Theories: A Sampling of Critical Lenses,Show MoreRelatedThe And Human Nature s Love For Categorization1011 Words   |  5 Pagesmay be unfair to the work itself. Due to the complexity of literature, and human nature’s love for categorization, we started looking at pieces of literature through â€Å"critical lenses†. The lenses help us narrow down the aspects of our criticism, effectively categorizing them. For example, there are four main critical lenses: Marxist, Feminist, Psychoanalytic al, and Archetypal. Each of the four has a unique set of aspects it analyzes, but all have one thing in common, they help find the underlyingRead MoreHamlet: a Feminist Approach Essay examples1224 Words   |  5 PagesHamlet: A Feminist Approach Sexism: the belief or attitude that one sex is inherently superior to, more competent than, or more valuable than the other (most commonly used for male superiority). This idea that women are weak is not a new one in the modern world. It has been studied for countless years along with the concept of a patriarchal society. A patriarchy is defined as a system of society or government in which men hold the power and women are largely excluded from it. Such systems currently