The impossible
is required of him,--not the impossible in itself, but the impossible to
him. How he winds, turns, agonizes, advances and recoils, ever reminded,
ever reminding himself, and at last almost loses his purpose from his
thoughts, without ever again recovering his peace of
mind...."--"
Hamlet" by
Goethe.
Goethe's criticism of Hamlet is so much finer than any English criticism
that I am glad to quote it. It will serve, I think, as a standard to
distinguish the best criticism of the past from what I shall set forth
in the course of this analysis. In this chapter I shall try to show what
new light our knowledge of Shakespeare throws on the play, and
conversely what new light the play throws on its maker.
The first moment of disillusion brought out, as we have seen in Brutus,
all the kindness in Shakespeare's nature. He will believe in men in
spite of experience; but the idealistic pose could not be kept up:
sooner or later Shakespeare had to face the fact that he had been
befooled and scorned by friend and mistress--how did he meet it? Hamlet
is the answer: Shakespeare went about nursing dreams of revenge and
murder.
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