The sun., 1903-01-04

mare 60. and william Shakespeare bothered
little about the types when he had actual
men and women to serve for study ma
, terial. There he was monarch OF all ne
surveyed--and what an empire! What
percept ionsl What music he made when
he sang Of his humans! Hdmiet In a sondfd
OF the soul: but 10 difficult In 1t that its
public performance usually escapes cat
astrophe by hairs breadth. Swinburne
was right when he gleefully asserted that
Shakespeare made the additions to this
supreme tragedy 30 a. TO keep 1t from the
actors clutches
As are the Beethoven sonatas and sym
phonies TO the musician. Hamlet Is attacked
by every actor OF ambition. To play the
melancholy Prince-what fudge Is this
damnable iteration on melancholy
Hamlet was thousand things besides
marks the end Of professional career
which whether 1t has been a career oil
tragedy comedy. history. pastoral. pas
toral-comic. his.orical-pastoral. tragical-
historical. al-htstorical-pas
torai, always terminates with Hamlet.
lie is the sondid oppdssiono,d OF the actor
And. curiousy enough. such Is the music
OF the poem that few can quite spoil it,
Hence the sayir ? echoed by Lewes that no
actor makes failure in Hdmiet-which
means nothing. II you ana!yze 1t, Two or
three actors in a century-i00 years, mind
you!--there are who physically. peychi-
cally or, we should say. temperamentally.
are suited to the part Edwin Booth was
one. Henry Irving was not another. Gar
rick must have been too real, to judge
from FieldinRs account. and Lewes re-
lates that Edmund Kean was too passion
ate We have seen Ludwig Barnay and
Kainz. Both are excellent Hamlets. while
Mounet -Sully's reading is still fresh in
the memory Of New York theatregoers.
1t was an eminently eallc impersonation,
What. then, IL the true Hamlet Ia he
suffering from Folie du doute. as Lom-
broso, Maudsley and others believe? Or
does he artfully assume his vapors. his
amblings and crasy jiggings2 Swinburne.
who loathes German sciolism. will have
none Of Goethe and his wilhelm Meister"
cirticism the precious vase Of Hdmlefs
soul contained an acorn that grew to an
oak and 80 shattered the delicate inclosure.
which means that burden too grievous
to he borne was imposed upon the feminine
soul Of the young man. This is the inter-
estirlR interpretation.
Swinburne, however, agrees with Brown
ing that there Is still a point in Hamlet
'unseiz,d by the Germans yet Hamlet
for him has an inmost nature by no means
a riddle; it's characterize ic is not -irresolu
tion or hesitation in any form Of weakness.
but rather the strong confiux OF contending
forces. The italics are ours. Because OF
his sheer breadth of brain and spirit, Ham
let was hampered where any other. Ldertes
or even the cautious Horatio. would have
cut the knot OF perplexity with one brilliant
stroke. THAT during four whole acts
continues Swinburne. Hamlet cannot or
does not make up his mind to any direct or
deliberate action against his uncle il true
enough; true, also. we may say. that Ham
let had somewhat more Of mind than another
man to make up. and might properly want
somewhat More time than might another
man to do it in; but not, l venture to ray
in spite Of Goethe, through innate made
quacy to his task and uncomfortable weak
ness Of will; not, venture to think in spite
OF Hugo. through immedicable soepticism
Of the spirit and irremediable propensity
to nebulous intellectual refinement.
Swinburne then goes on to say that Ham
lets hot-headed and reckless behavior
on the voyage to England. his intrepidiiy
in the presence of Ldtrfes and his magnif-
cent courage at the last. are proofs pos tive
that he was no skuiker seeking in phil
osophy q pretext TO play the coward.
His dwelling upon his own weakness.
Swinburne thinks. operates favorably for the
theory advanced-that Hami9t had tol he
we'll rounded before he resoited to revenge
We recall, in this particular, a suggestive
study by the late George Miles of Emmets-
burg, Md. who insisted that Hamlet had
the conscience Of Roman Catholic super
imposed upon the nature OF man Of his
troublous times He could not send a
soul unshrived to hell but when he had the
proofs of his uncle's guilt not the loss of his
own soul could stay his terrific reprisals
Swinburne. by the way, thinks with per-
feet propriety that the monologue on
reason and resolution, always omitted from
the fourth oct az otually eclipees and dis
tancee on philosophic and poetic grounds
the better known and better hk ID sohloquy
on suicide and doubt.
The Swinburnean view OF Hamisf is not
without precedent. George Henry Iewss,
charming cduseur and admirable critic
Of actors and the art Of acting describes
minutely the Hamlet of Charles Fechter
Hamlet some OF us remember, though tho
French actor was in his decadence when
he visited America. (He died In $50
Iewes thought this assumption had charm,
was natural, but wondered at its lymphatc
quality. at the overaccentustion Of the
reflective in the character Hamlet, he
cries, was. after the interview with the
Ghost. a man half crazed. man boiling
over with his unsettling memories, with
his desire for the truth, for revenge. Little
wonder that his words were whrlng, his
ao otion antic. Therefore, the critic taxes
Fechter with phlegm, with uttering "To be
or not 10 be. as il IL were thesis in pho-
sophical examination. These are not his
words, but his meaning, as We recall it
for we have not his book at hand. How
few actors there are. Of whom the same
cannot be said!
A Hamlet who has potentialities Of ir-
sanity, who is half-crecked, a poet. a phi.
losopher. man of the world, great heart,
great soul. greet brain-to employ old
feshiened categories-is confronted with a
l.