Hamlet
Characters of
Shakespear's Plays -
By William Hazlitt
(First Published 1817)
This is that Hamlet the Dane whom we read of in our youth, and whom we may be said almost to remember in [74] our after years; he who made that famous soliloquy on life, who gave the advice to the players, who thought "this goodly frame, the earth," a sterile promontory, and "this brave o'er-hanging firmament, the air, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire," "a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours;" whom "man delighted not, nor woman neither;" he who talked with the grave-diggers, and moralised on Yorrick's skull; the school-fellow of Rosencraus and Guildenstern at Wittenburg; the friend of ...
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This play has a prophetic truth, which is above that of history. Whoever has become thoughtful and melancholy through his own mishaps or those of others; whoever has borne about with him the clouded brow of reflection, and thought himself "too much i' th' sun;" whoever has seen the golden lamp of day dimmed by envious mists rising in his own breast, and could find in the world before him only a dull blank with nothing left remarkable in it; whoever has known "the pangs of despised love, the insolence of office, or the spurns which patient merit of the unworthy takes;" he who has felt his mind sink within him, and sadness cling to his heart like a malady, who has had his hopes blighted and his youth staggered by the apparitions of strange things; who cannot well be at ease, while he sees evil hovering near him like a spectre; whose powers of action have been eaten up by thought, he to whom the universe seems infinite, and himself nothing; whose bitterness [75] of soul makes him ...
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the incidents succeed each other as matters of course, the characters think and speak and act just as they might do if left entirely to themselves. There is no set purpose, no straining at a point. The observations are suggested by the passing scene - the gusts of passion come and go like sounds of music borne on the wind. The whole play is an exact transcript of what might be supposed to have taken place at the court of Denmark, at the remote period of time fixed upon, before the modern refinements in morals and manners were heard of. It would have been interesting enough to have been admitted as a bystander in such a scene, at such a time, to have heard and witnessed [76] something of ...
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Hamlet. (2011, March 31). Retrieved April 25, 2024, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Hamlet/97264
"Hamlet." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 31 Mar. 2011. Web. 25 Apr. 2024. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Hamlet/97264>
"Hamlet." Essayworld.com. March 31, 2011. Accessed April 25, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Hamlet/97264.
"Hamlet." Essayworld.com. March 31, 2011. Accessed April 25, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Hamlet/97264.
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