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I look upon the tragedy of Hamlet as the masterpiece of the drama--the masterpiece of Shakespeare --I had almost said, the masterpiece of the human mind. ...
Hamlet is the personification of a man, in the prime of life, with a mind cultivated by the learning acquirable at an university, combining intelligence and sensibility in their highest degrees, within a step of the highest distinction attainable on earth, crushed to extinction by the pressure of calamities inflicted, not by nature, but against nature-not by physical, but by moral evil. Hamlet is the heart and soul of man, in all their perfection and all their frailty, in agonizing conflict with human crime, also in its highest pre-eminence of guilt. Hamlet is all heart and soul. ...
Hamlet’s right to the throne has been violated, and his darkest suspicions roused by the marriage of his mother with his uncle so speedily succeeding his fathers death. His love is first trammeled by the conflicting pride of his birth and station operating upon his ambition, and although he has “made many tenders of his affection” to Ophelia, and “hath importund her with love in honorable fashion,” yet he has made no proposal of marriage to her--he has promised her nothing but love, and, cautioned both by her brother and her father, she meets the advances of Hamlet with repulsion. ... ”
This perpetual action and reaction between the mind and the heart; the feeling spurring him on, and the reflection holding him back, constitute that most admirable portrait of human nature, in its highest estate little lower than angels, little above the Hottentots of the African cape, which pervades every part of the character of Hamlet. ... Shakespeare has taken care not to bring Hamlet and Ophelia into the presence of each other after this event. ... The reasoning faculty of Hamlet is at once sportive, sorrowful, indignant, and melancholy.
Approximate Word count = 1541
Approximate Pages = 6.2
(250 words per page double spaced)
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