- Eliot, T. S. "Hamlet and His Problems."
- The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism. London: Methune, 1921. 95-103.
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Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting That would not let me sleep . . . Up from my cabin, My sea-gown scarf'd about me, in the dark Grop'd I to find out them: had my desire; Finger'd their packet; are of his quite mature. Both workmanship and thought are in an unstable condition. We are surely justified in attributing the play, with that other profoundly interesting play of "intractable" material and astonishing versification, Measure for Measure, to a period of crisis, after which follow the tragic successes which culminate in Coriolanus. Coriolanus may be not as "interesting" as Hamlet, but it is, with Antony and Cleopatra, Shakespeare's most assured artistic success. And probably more people have thought Hamlet a work of art because they found it interesting, than have found it interesting because it is a work of art. It is the "Mona Lisa" of literature. The grounds of Hamlet's failure are not immediately obvious. Mr. Robertson is undoubtedly correct in concluding that the essential emotion of the play is the feeling of a son towards a guilty mother: [Hamlet's] tone is that of one who has suffered tortures on the score of his mother's degradation. The guilt of a mother is an almost intolerable motive for drama, but it had to be maintained and emphasized to supply a psychological solution, or rather a hint of one. This, however, is by no means the whole story. |