The views about Hamlet, and other essays . g, the proud mans contumely,The pangs of despised love, the laws insolence of office, and the spurnsThat patient merit of the unworthy takes,When he himself might his quietus makeWith a bare bodkin ? III. i. 70-6. In any performance of Hamlet, that pearl, theGrave-diggers scene, is sure to be presented (V. ) ; but it has no dramatic justification, —that is, the action is in no way advanced. Theseare the deep musings of Shakespeares own mindand heart, and we do not estimate them accordingto their purely dramatic value. 0»¥Ja5Z£.jQr„.ih
The views about Hamlet, and other essays . g, the proud mans contumely,The pangs of despised love, the laws insolence of office, and the spurnsThat patient merit of the unworthy takes,When he himself might his quietus makeWith a bare bodkin ? III. i. 70-6. In any performance of Hamlet, that pearl, theGrave-diggers scene, is sure to be presented (V. ) ; but it has no dramatic justification, —that is, the action is in no way advanced. Theseare the deep musings of Shakespeares own mindand heart, and we do not estimate them accordingto their purely dramatic value. 0»¥Ja5Z£.jQr„.ihis„,.^^ - fact that Shakespeare, disregarding strictly dra- jjmatic considerations, has given freely to Hamlet ^tlie charm, the warmth, and the boundlessness of 1bis own nature. J The bearing of this discussion upon our central inquiry may be stated as follows : our impression ) of Hamlets dilatoriness is intensified by his long soliloquies and by his abundant comments upon the ^ William Shakespeare^ one-vol. edition, p. 365. —. ) 44 THE VIEWS ABOUT HAMLET various problems of life ; but these utterances arein part the personal outpourings of Shakespearehimself, not called for by either the plot of the pieceor the characterization: the hands are the handsof Esau, but the voice is the voice of Jacob. CONCLUSION The Teutonic mind naturally looks upon the por-trayal of character as the real purpose of the drama,and as its own excuse. It is probably safe tosay that Shakespeare has given in Hamlet theultimate example of character-portrayal in completeness with which the nature and dis-position of the Prince, his entire mental and moralbeing, are put before us is something which we areaccustomed to find only in the wide-ranging, looselyconstructed novel, not in the intense, concentrated,and sharply limited drama. Dramatic criticism is inclined to insist that onlythose characteristics of the hero should be madeprominent which really influence the course of theactio
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