Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth
therefore, not so easy and lucid, and in the more ordinary dialogue it
is sometimes involved and obscure, and from these and other causes
deficient in charm.[30] On the other hand, it is always full of life and
movement, and in great passages produces sudden, strange, electrifying
effects which are rarely found in earlier plays, and not so often even
in _Hamlet_. The more pervading effect of beauty gives place to what may
almost be called explosions of sublimity or pathos.
There is room for differences of taste and preference as regards the
style and versification of the end of Shakespeare's Second Period, and
those of the later tragedies and last romances. But readers who miss in
the latter the peculiar enchantment of the earlier will not deny that
the changes in form are in entire harmony with the inward changes. If
they object to passages where, to exaggerate a little, the sense has
rather to be discerned beyond the words than found in them, and if they
do not wholly enjoy the movement of so typical a speech as this,
Yes, like enough, high-battled Caesar will
Unstate his happiness, and be staged to the show,
Against a sworder! I see men's judgements are
A parcel of their fortunes; and things outward
Do draw the inward quality after them,
To suffer all alike. That he should dream,
Knowing all measures, the full Caesar will
Answer his emptiness! Caesar, thou hast subdued
His judgement too,
they will admit that, in traversing the impatient throng of thoughts not
always completely embodied, their minds move through an astonishing
variety of ideas and experiences, and that a style less generally poetic
than that of _Hamlet_ is also a style more invariably dramatic. It may
be that, for the purposes of tragedy, the highest point was reached
during the progress of these changes, in the most critical passages of
_Othello_, _King Lear_ and _Macbeth_.[31]
2
Suppose you were to describe the plot of _Hamlet_ to a person quite
ignorant of the play, and suppose you were careful to tell your hearer
nothing about Hamlet's character, what impression would your sketch make
on him? Would he not exclaim: 'What a sensational story! Why, here are
some eight violent deaths, not to speak of adultery, a ghost, a mad
woman, and a fight in a grave! If I did not know that the play was
Shakespeare's, I should have thought it must have been one of those
early tragedies of blood and horror from which he is said to have
redeemed the stage'? And would he not then go on to ask: 'But why in the
world did not Hamlet obey the Ghost at once, and so save seven of those
eight lives?'
This exclamation and this question both show the same thing, that the
whole story turns upon the peculiar character of the hero. For without
this character the story would appear sensational and horrible; and yet
the actual _Hamlet_ is very far from being so, and even has a less
terrible effect than _Othello_, _King Lear_ or _Macbeth_. And again, if
we had no knowledge of this character, the story would hardly be
intelligible; it would at any rate at once suggest that wondering
question about the conduct of the hero; while the story of any of the
other three tragedies would sound plain enough and would raise no such
question. It is further very probable that the main change made by
Shakespeare in the story as already represented on the stage, lay in a
new conception of Hamlet's character and so of the cause of his delay.
And, lastly, when we examine the tragedy, we observe two things which
illustrate the same point. First, we find by the side of the hero no
other figure of tragic proportions, no one like Lady Macbeth or Iago, no
one even like Cordelia or Desdemona; so that, in Hamlet's absence, the
remaining characters could not yield a Shakespearean tragedy at all.
And, secondly, we find among them two, Laertes and Fortinbras, who are
evidently designed to throw the character of the hero into relief. Even
in the situations there is a curious parallelism; for Fortinbras, like
Hamlet, is the son of a king, lately dead, and succeeded by his brother;
and Laertes, like Hamlet, has a father slain, and feels bound to avenge
him. And with this parallelism in situation there is a strong contrast
in character; for both Fortinbras and Laertes possess in abundance the
very quality which the hero seems to lack, so that, as we read, we are
tempted to exclaim that either of them would have accomplished Hamlet's
task in a day. Naturally, then, the tragedy of _Hamlet_ with Hamlet left
out has become the symbol of extreme absurdity; while the character
itself has probably exerted a greater fascination, and certainly has
been the subject of more discussion, than any other in the whole
literature of the world.
Before, however, we approach the task of examining it, it is as well to
remind ourselves that the virtue of the play by no means wholly depends
on this most subtle creation. We are all aware of this, and if we were
not so the history of _Hamlet_, as a stage-play, might bring the fact
home to us. It is to-day the most popular of Shakespeare's tragedies on
our stage; and yet a large number, perhaps even the majority of the
spectators, though they may feel some mysterious attraction in the hero,
certainly do not question themselves about his character or the cause of
his delay, and would still find the play exceptionally effective, even
if he were an ordinary brave young man and the obstacles in his path
were purely external. And this has probably always been the case.
_Hamlet_ seems from the first to have been a favourite play; but until
late in the eighteenth century, I believe, scarcely a critic showed that
he perceived anything specially interesting in the character. Hanmer, in
1730, to be sure, remarks that 'there appears no reason at all in nature
why this young prince did not put the usurper to death as soon as
possible'; but it does not even cross his mind that this apparent
'absurdity' is odd and might possibly be due to some design on the part
of the poet. He simply explains the absurdity by observing that, if
Shakespeare had made the young man go 'naturally to work,' the play
would have come to an end at once! Johnson, in like manner, notices that
'Hamlet is, through the whole piece, rather an instrument than an
agent,' but it does not occur to him that this peculiar circumstance can
be anything but a defect in Shakespeare's management of the plot.
Seeing, they saw not. Henry Mackenzie, the author of _The Man of
Feeling_, was, it would seem, the first of our critics to feel the
'indescribable charm' of Hamlet, and to divine something of
Shakespeare's intention. 'We see a man,' he writes, 'who in other
circumstances would have exercised all the moral and social virtues,
placed in a situation in which even the amiable qualities of his mind
serve but to aggravate his distress and to perplex his conduct.'[32] How
significant is the fact (if it be the fact) that it was only when the
slowly rising sun of Romance began to flush the sky that the wonder,
beauty and pathos of this most marvellous of Shakespeare's creations
began to be visible! We do not know that they were perceived even in his
own day, and perhaps those are not wholly wrong who declare that this
creation, so far from being a characteristic product of the time, was a
vision of
the prophetic soul
Of the wide world dreaming on things to come.
But the dramatic splendour of the whole tragedy is another matter, and
must have been manifest not only in Shakespeare's day but even in
Hanmer's.
It is indeed so obvious that I pass it by, and proceed at once to the
central question of Hamlet's character. And I believe time will be
saved, and a good deal of positive interpretation may be introduced, if,
without examining in detail any one theory, we first distinguish classes
or types of theory which appear to be in various ways and degrees
insufficient or mistaken. And we will confine our attention to sane
theories;--for on this subject, as on all questions relating to
Shakespeare, there are plenty of merely lunatic views: the view, for
example, that Hamlet, being a disguised woman in love with Horatio,
could hardly help seeming unkind to Ophelia; or the view that, being a
very clever and wicked young man who wanted to oust his innocent uncle
from the throne, he 'faked' the Ghost with this intent.
But, before we come to our types of theory, it is necessary to touch on
an idea, not unfrequently met with, which would make it vain labour to
discuss or propose any theory at all. It is sometimes said that Hamlet's
character is not only intricate but unintelligible. Now this statement
might mean something quite unobjectionable and even perhaps true and
important. It might mean that the character cannot be _wholly_
understood. As we saw, there may be questions which we cannot answer
with certainty now, because we have nothing but the text to guide us,
but which never arose for the spectators who saw _Hamlet_ acted in
Shakespeare's day; and we shall have to refer to such questions in these
lectures. Again, it may be held without any improbability that, from
carelessness or because he was engaged on this play for several years,
Shakespeare left inconsistencies in his exhibition of the character
which must prevent us from being certain of his ultimate meaning. Or,
possibly, we may be baffled because he has illustrated in it certain
strange facts of human nature, which he had noticed but of which we are
ignorant. But then all this would apply in some measure to other
characters in Shakespeare, and it is not this that is meant by the
statement that Hamlet is unintelligible. What is meant is that
Shakespeare _intended_ him to be so, because he himself was feeling
strongly, and wished his audience to feel strongly, what a mystery life
is, and how impossible it is for us to understand it. Now here, surely,
we have mere confusion of mind. The mysteriousness of life is one thing,
the psychological unintelligibility of a dramatic character is quite
another; and the second does not show the first, it shows only the
incapacity or folly of the dramatist. If it did show the first, it would
be very easy to surpass Shakespeare in producing a sense of mystery: we
should simply have to portray an absolutely nonsensical character. Of
course _Hamlet_ appeals powerfully to our sense of the mystery of life,
but so does _every_ good tragedy; and it does so not because the hero is
an enigma to us, but because, having a fair understanding of him, we
feel how strange it is that strength and weakness should be so mingled
in one soul, and that this soul should be doomed to such misery and
apparent failure.
(1) To come, then, to our typical views, we may lay it down, first, that
no theory will hold water which finds the cause of Hamlet's delay
merely, or mainly, or even to any considerable extent, in external
difficulties. Nothing is easier than to spin a plausible theory of this
kind. What, it may be asked,[33] was Hamlet to do when the Ghost had
left him with its commission of vengeance? The King was surrounded not
merely by courtiers but by a Swiss body-guard: how was Hamlet to get at
him? Was he then to accuse him publicly of the murder? If he did, what
would happen? How would he prove the charge? All that he had to offer in
proof was--a ghost-story! Others, to be sure, had seen the Ghost, but no
one else had heard its revelations. Obviously, then, even if the court
had been honest, instead of subservient and corrupt, it would have voted
Hamlet mad, or worse, and would have shut him up out of harm's way. He
could not see what to do, therefore, and so he waited. Then came the
actors, and at once with admirable promptness he arranged for the