[133] With the help of all these,
and especially of the last, I shall apply this theory of criticism to
Hamlet, not in the hope of saying anything new, but of bringing something
to the support of the thesis, that, if Shakespeare was skilful as a
playwright, he was even greater as a dramatist,--that, if his immediate
business was to fill the theatre, his higher object was to create
something which, by fulfilling the conditions and answering the
requirements of modern life, should as truly deserve to be called a
work of art as others had deserved it by doing the same thing in
former times and under other circumstances. Supposing him to have
accepted--consciously or not is of little importance--the new terms of
the problem which makes character the pivot of dramatic action, and
consequently the key of dramatic unity, how far did he succeed?
Before attempting my analysis, I must clear away a little rubbish. Are
such anachronisms as those of which Voltaire accuses Shakespeare in
Hamlet, such as the introduction of cannon before the invention of
gunpowder, and making Christians of the Danes three centuries too soon,
of the least bearing aesthetically? I think not; but as they are of a
piece with a great many other criticisms upon the great poet, it is worth
while to dwell upon them a moment.
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