uneducated actor called Shakspere of a play by an unknown poet called Shakespeare, etc. Many upholders of this conclusion have consoled themselves that in this very obscurity, so characteristic of life in general, lies the power and attractiveness of the play. Even Grillparzer[1] saw in its impenetrability the reason for its colossal effectiveness; he adds "Dadurch wird es zu einem getreuen Bild der Weltbegebenheiten und wirkt ebenso ungeheuer als diese." Now, vagueness and obfuscation may or may not be characteristic of life in general, but they are certainly not the attributes of a successful drama. No disconnected and meaningless drama could have produced the effects on its audiences that Hamlet has continuously done for the past three centuries. The underlying meaning of the drama may be totally obscure, but that there is one, and one which touches on problems of vital interest to the human heart, is empirically demonstrated by the uniform success with which the drama appeals to the most diverse audiences. To hold the contrary is to deny all the canons of dramatic art accepted since the time of Aristotle. Hamlet as a masterpiece stands or falls by these canons.
We are compelled then to take the position that there is some cause for Hamlet's vacillation which has not yet been fathomed. If this lies neither in his incapacity for action in general, nor in the inordinate difficulty of the task in question, then it must of necessity lie in the third possibility, namely in some special feature of the task that renders it repugnant to him. This conclusion, that Hamlet at heart does not want to carry out the task, seems so obvious that it is hard to see how any critical reader of the play could avoid making it.[2] Some of the direct evidence for it furnished in the play will presently be brought forward when we discuss the problem of the cause for his repugnance, but it will first be necessary to mention some of the views that have been expressed on this subject. The first writer clearly to recognise that Hamlet was a man not baffled in his endeavours but struggling in an internal conflict was Ulrici[3] in 1839. The details of Ulrici's hypothesis, which like Klein's, originated in the Hegelian views of morality, are hard to follow, but the essence of it is the contention that Hamlet gravely doubted the moral legitimacy of revenge. He was thus plunged in a struggle between his natural tendency to avenge his father and his highly developed ethical
- ↑ Grillparzer: Studien zur kitterargeschichte, 3e Ausg., 1880.
- ↑ Any one who doubts this conclusion is recommended to read Loening's convincing chapter (XII), "Hamlet's Verhalten gegen seiner Aufgabe."
- ↑ Ulrici: Shakespeare's dramatische Kunst; Geschichte und Characteristik des Shakespeare'schen Dramas, 1839.
