HAMLET. No other play of Shakespeare's offers so many complex and interesting prob lems as
Critics of the text find in the variations between the first quarto (1603), the second quarto (1604) and the. first folio (1623) some baffling questions of textual criti cism. The second quarto, ((newly printed and enlarged to almost as much againe as it was,') is so different from the first as to suggest a thoroughgoing revision of the entire play. It is evident that the story of Hamlet, first told by Saxo Grammaticus in the 13th cen tury and reproduced in Belleforest's
Whatever may be said of other characters in the play, or of the play as a dramatic whole, the character of Hamlet himself is undoubtedly the greatest creation of Shakespeare. He has some of the cmyriad-mindedness" of his creator. The humor of Falstaff, the melancholy of Mac beth the penetrating insight into human nature displayed by Iago, the winsomeness of Prince Hal, the intense passion of King Lear—all of these are to be found in Hamlet, and thereto is added an outlook into the infinite, a compre hension of the burden of the mystery of all this unintelligible world that is distinctly his own. He can outjest the grave-diggers, catch the conscience of the king, outwit Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, talk to Osric in his own eu phuistic language, open up the heart of a friend to Horatio, and then, left to himself, he can voyage on strange seas of thought alone. There is scarcely a phase of life in which he is not interested: he discusses philosophy with Horatio, and with the players he indulges in reminiscences of the theatre and in a discussion of the laws of dramatic art and the principles of dramatic criticism. The fact is he is a genius with something of the irresistible full ness of life characteristic of the Renaissance.
The interpretation of this character and espe cially of the nature of the tragedy to which his career leads is one of the baffling problems of criticism. The theory that he was really
insane at times is untenable. To all attempts to read his character Hamlet seems to say: look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me 1 You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass." Different types of people find themselves reflected in his words and actions. Coleridge saw in him his own vacillating, over-reflective nature; Goethe exclaimed as he thought of his tendency to subordinate action to thought, is Germany Is So he ap pears in different roles as the philosopher, the dreamer, the procrastinator and the cold hearted misanthrope. A lack of certitude of belief may be the explanation of his inability to lay hold of any plan with calm resolved energy. This emphasis upon his limitations or defects should not prevent the reader from see ing that he is called upon to perform an almost impossible task. The time is out of joint; there is a world of confusion and disorder about him; there is no way for him to act without being suspected as a traitor and an assassin. The truth probably lies between these two theories, his personal characteristics and his external environment reacting upon each other in such a way as to produce fatal con sequences. The mystery of his suffering and of that of other characters, notably Ophelia, remains unsolved.
A very interesting study is that of the con trasts to be found in — the contrasts between characters and scenes. The characters of Hamlet and Laertes are sharply contrasted: each has lost his father under deplorable cir cumstances; one is impulsive and rash, the other reflective and calculating. Hamlet and Horatio are devoted to each other and yet so different — one restless, confused and almost dazed, the other evenly balanced, well poised, steady. The contrast between Hamlet's humor and melan choly, each relieving and making more im pressive the other, is a dramatic effect. The bringing together in one scene of the grave diggers and the mourners over the dead body of Ophelia is a violation of the canons of clas sical dramatic art, but it is true to life.
There is an undercurrent of fatalism in