A great dramatist may not paint himself for us at any time in
his career with all his faults and vices; but when he goes deepest into
human nature, we may be sure that self-knowledge is his guide; as Hamlet
said, "To know a man well, were to know himself" (oneself), so far
justifying the paradox that dramatic writing is merely a form of
autobiography. We may take then as a guide this first criterion that, in
his masterpiece of psychology, the dramatist will reveal most of his own
nature.
If a dozen lovers of Shakespeare were asked to name the most profound
and most complex character in all his dramas it is probable that every
one without hesitation would answer Hamlet. The current of cultivated
opinion has long set in this direction. With the intuition of a kindred
genius, Goethe was the first to put Hamlet on a pedestal: "the
incomparable," he called him, and devoted pages to an analysis of the
character. Coleridge followed with the confession whose truth we
shall see later: "I have a smack of Hamlet myself, if I may say so.
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