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2377179
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International Journal of Ethics.
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HAMLET. 85
HAMLET.
CLAUDE C. H. WILLIAMSON.
4 Sir J. G. Frazer in The GoldenBough, part 1. "The Magic Art," vol. 11,
pages 280, et seq., 1917 edition. He states:
It would seem that among some Aryan peoples, at a certain stage of their
social evolution, it has been customary to regard women and not men as the
channels in which royal blood flows, and to bestow the kingdom in each suc-
cessive generation on a man of another family, and often of another country,*
who marries one of the princesses and reigns over his wife's people.
Where usages and ideas of this sort prevail, it is obvious that the kingship is
merely an appanage of marriage with a woman of the blood royal.
Wherevera custom of this sort is observed a man may clearlyacquirethe king--
dom just as well by marrying the widow as the daughter of his predecessor.
This is what Agisthus did at Mycenoe,and what Hamlet's uncle Feng and
Hamlet's successor,Wiglet, did in Denmark; all three slew their predecessors,
marriedtheir widows, and then sat peacefully on the throne. The tame sub-
mission of the people to their rule would be intelligible, if they regarded the'
assassins,in spite of their crime,as the lawful occupantsof the throneby reason,
of their marriagewith the widowed queens.
HAMLET. 99
him with human flesh and blood. But, on the other hand,
there is the intense sympathy he creates from his very first
entrance on the stage; we seem to understand him even in
his wildest flights; our heart goes out to him, to use the com-
mon phrase. Moreover, it is not otherwise than significant
that no actor fails in Hamlet. At all events, that is the
current doctrine of the theatre, and the mere fact that such
a belief prevails on the boards would apparently show that
Hamlet is by no means an impossible, but a very personable
hero. He may be ideal, but he is not unreal. You under-
stand him, perhaps, better on the stage than in your study.
Our scepticism is increased when we discover that one of the
reasons for suspecting a political intention in Hamlet is that
there are profound inconsistencies in the play, which cannot
be otherwise explained. Here the naivety of Miss Win-
stanley is ,fyery apparent; from the fact that critics have
taken irreconcilable views of the play she concludes that the
elements of the play itself are irreconcilable. It is true that
a few critics have pronounced Hamlet an artistic failure,
lacking in real dramatic unity, but they have been few, and
-they have not been the best. Neither Coleridge nor Goethe
found any insuperable difficulties in the play; and, even
though we may think they set Shakespeare on an inacces-
sible pinnacle, they carry more weight than all the rest of
the critics put together; for they had the advantage of being
great poets. The simple explanation of the disagreement
of the critics is that Hamlet is a masterpiece; and a master-
piece is, almost by definition, a work from which very differ-
ent men can derive a satisfaction which is complete and
peculiar to themselves.
CLAUDE C. H. WILLIAMSON.
LONDON.