Omaha daily bee., 1903-01-18

are concerned today; the future Of Ham
let Is quite as fruitful, and the subject,
being big with potentialities, intrigues US
vastly. Georg Brandes, the Danish Shake
spearean critic, who does not attempt to
pluck out the heart Of the poets mystery,
rather preferring more sensible to exotic
eVegeticsl methods; Brandes, we repeat,
has written a chapter called 'Hamlets In
huence on Later Zines" and in ID reviews
the enormous impression made by the play
upon subsequent writer's OF genius. Goethe
among the great OF the last century, him
self the Zee of the moderns, wrote
Faust" with its Hamlet atmosphere OF
doubt and despair, before the feeting
spectacle OF existence. stay. thou art 50
fair!' is surely a Hamlet.llke cry wrung
from the heart Of this thinker. Byron's
Manfred Is Hamletian. Heine Is the Jewish
Hamlet, perhaps more Hamlet than Shake
speare's. And there Is Alfred de Musset,
and, as Brandes notes, Mickiewicz, that
Adam Mickiewicz whose lie Lac de Willis
and Conrad Wallenrod, eKerted such an
Ballade is a reflection in tone of lie Lac de
Willis" And who dares 20 deny that the
Bminor scherzo, breathing defiance and
irresolution, was not inspired by a Hamlet
mood. Poland is the Hamlet among ma
lions.
of \. Kolai Lelau, the mad Hungarian
poet who died in an asylum, like Nietzsche.
a tragic Hamlet, he could no longer endure
the harshness OF his life. Turgeney, too.
created some Hamlets, truly Russian,
withal; dreamers with a tendency to
awaken at intervals and work havoc about
them, then sink back into their numbing
visions. One of his short tales Is called
The Hamlet OF the Shtchigrl District"
Both Gogol and Dostiewsky understood the
Hamlet nature. particularly the latter
writer. perhaps the most original. certainly
the most forceful of Russia's fiction artists.
Nor can we omit the name of Tschaikow-
sky, wf-Ae symphonic poem Hamlet"
contains less of the philoSophic and more
OF the dramatic Hamlet. Storm and stress
realization of the gentle Ophelia, charac-
terlze this tone-poem.. Indeed, It would be
counterpart of the noble Prince, who car
ries within his bosom something Of Orestes
and on mean moiety of Arthur .Schopon-
lust as his mockinE raRam1fBn. peer Gynt
is a perversion OF Faus and his ceaseless
search for knowledge. Leopard. Senancour,
Amiel, Poe, James Clarence Mangan-an
Irish HamletJames Thomsona author Of
The City of Dreadful Night" Baudelaire,
Maeterlfnck, Hauptmann are also of the
same TTiste crew of half-Hamlets.
However, all these are Hamlets who have
been, who are, but who are not to be. for
the twentieth century is bound to evolve
It's own peculiar Interpretation OF the Ham
let nature. We never had the Byronic
Hamlet of the nineteenth century; the
the Hamlet s%atirical in the case OF Heinrich
Heine; and II would not be going far afield
In believing that Frederic Moreau' of
"L'Education Sentimentale' is the giant
Flaubert's presentment OF bourgeois Ham
let riddled with the decay of ~inaction and
inhrmity Of purpose. Religion has also
ANhc w AG CAOP Va AAiAAC
But we would rather dwell upon the
worldly types. There is still an unexplored
Hamlet. a study and recasting OF his tenn
perament-one Is tempted to say a recrea-
tion-so profound. SO original, so ,miracu-
lousy novel that each time we read IL we
are aghast at the poets temetity In she'd
ding his own skin to enter Shakespeare's.
This Hamlet is the one that will be dearest
and nearest to the children of this age, 1t IL
the Hamlet ironical, a Hamlet who knows
Nietzsche and his joyless joyousness, yet
has never read him 1t Is the Hamlet of
Jules Laforgue.
Fortunately, even the requirements OF
erudition do not demand, this easy famili-
arity with the type OF literature with which
M. Hunneker is so much at home. and
Hamlet" as written by Shakespeare and
handed down to us by the various editors
who have labored to preserve its beauties
and strength. may still be studied and en-
joyed by people who know nothing OF Ibsen
or Laforgue or any OF the hosts who write
for the understanding Of ages to come. It
is. perhaps, also fortunate for these writ
ers that when the ages they aim at arrive
they Will not be there to enjoy the inter-
probation OF their own works. And we
can easily believe. that Shakespeare will
still be popular in that far-ahead time,
and that the debate over the hidden mean
ings OF Hamlet" will be as lively then
as II has been at any time since "students'
began to see things.
Mr.. Sothern himself has found time to
add a little TO the literature Of the de-
bate, being moved thereto by the persual
Of some unkInd things the critic Of the
Washington Pest, Mr.. Fred Schrader, had
to say about. his presentation of the char
acter G. the melancholy prince Of Denmark.
After justifying himself IN his concep,
ton of the part. Mr.. sothern finally pays
his respects to the critic thus:
The great umbe OF what the unassum-
ing critic of the Post calls misguided peo-
| Pile" who not only tolerate but praise the
work which he so brilliantly condemns,
OF concluding either that the large and
cultured audiences which have honored him
with their applause in this role are quite
and that the number of scholarly men who
have justified him with their Endorsement
and their praise are. indeed: misguided
mistaken in hts estimation OF his own i'm
portance.
That an actor should be forced to conclude
that a newspaper writer is capable of either
error or ignorance would tear from him his
most cherished d~elusion-force him to rely
on his own judgment and the verdict oil
what intelligent persons he may be for
tunate enough to know I'm this misguided
I W u aAAA AOgabA toa1K AAAA ~ EAAAh AhAA
a dishonored grave babbling his belief tina
he had come within hailing distance of th'
object to which he had devoted his life ant
his work; 1. e., the understanding OF whaI
he had been talking about.
The mere contemplation of such a STATE
of affairs is terrifying in the extreme, and
plunges Mr.. Sothern into a melancholy tC
which his offensive attitude I'm Hamlet" Il
the very hysteria OF mirth. and forces hin
to contemplate self-destrucuon with the
same intensity and for reasons similar e
those which wrecked the life, and. as somt
more OF less properly guided persons be
lieve, dethroned the reason of mat unfor,
tunate price-the SCATTERING Of his mos
cherished convictions and the awakening
TO the fact that those words OF wisdom
which he had gathered so eagerly from
what he had fondly believed to be the tire,
Of knowledge proved TO be. after all. moth,
ing but the bitter apples of the Dead sea.
Assuring the. critic OF the Post of his dis
tinguisheC consideration, Mr.. Sothern beg
to remain his obliged and obedient humbi,
servant. +. IL.
Garden Theater. New York City.
Coming event
Starting this afternoon. Williams an,
Walker, the leading colored comedians
open an engagement at the Boyd that con
tinues until Wednesday night. Last seasol
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