Bloom’s Shakespeare Through the Ages Antony and Cleopatra As You Like It Hamlet Henry IV (Part I) Julius Caesar King Lear Macbeth The Merchant of Venice A Midsummer Night’s Dream Othello Romeo and Juliet The Sonnets The Taming of the Shrew The Tempest Twelfth Night Bloom’s Shakespeare Through the Ages hamlET Edited and with an introduction by Harold Bloom Sterling Professor of the Humanities Yale University Volume Editor Brett Foster Bloom’s Shakespeare Through the Ages: Hamlet Copyright © 2008 by Infobase Publishing Introduction © 2008 by Harold Bloom All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher. For more information contact: Bloom’s Literary Criticism An imprint of Infobase Publishing 132 West 31st Street New York NY 10001 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hamlet / edited and with an introduction by Harold Bloom. p. cm. — (Bloom’s Shakespeare through the ages) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7910-9592-8 (hc : alk. paper) 1. Shakespeare, William, 1564–1616. Hamlet. 2. Hamlet (Legendary character) 3. Tragedy. I. Bloom, Harold. PR2807.H2623725 2008 822.3’3—dc22 2007050853 Bloom’s Literary Criticism books are available at special discounts when purchased in bulk quantities for businesses, associations, institutions, or sales promotions. Please call our Special Sales Department in New York at (212) 967-8800 or (800) 322-8755. You can find Bloom’s Literary Criticism on the World Wide Web at http://www.chelseahouse.com. Series design by Erika K. Arroyo Cover design by Ben Peterson Cover photo © The Granger Collection, New York Printed in the United States of America Bang EJB 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 This book is printed on acid-free paper. All links and Web addresses were checked and verified to be correct at the time of publication. Because of the dynamic nature of the Web, some addresses and links may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. CONTENTS q Series Introduction . .ix Volume Introduction by Harold Bloom . .xi Biography of William Shakespeare . 1 Summary of Hamlet . 5 Key Passages in Hamlet . .19 List of Characters in Hamlet . .35 CRITICISM THROUGH thE AGES . 39 t Hamlet in the Seventeenth Century . .41 1605—Ben Jonson, George Chapman, and John Marston. From Eastward Ho . 45 1608—François de Belleforest. Chapters 2–5 from The Hystorie of Hamblet . 48 1619—[Anonymous]. From A Funeral Elegy on the Death of Richard Burbage . 66 1661–1668—Samuel Pepys. From The Diary of Samuel Pepys . 67 1679—John Dryden. From “The Preface to the Play,” in Troilus and Cressida . 67 1698—Jeremy Collier. From A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage . 75 1699—James Drake. From The Antient and Modern Stages Survey’d . 76 t Hamlet in the Eighteenth Century . .81 1709—Nicholas Rowe. From Some Account of the Life of Mr . William Shakespear . 86 vi Contents 1734—Voltaire. “On Tragedy,” from Letters Concerning the English Nation . 88 1735—William Popple. From The Prompter . 92 1736—Thomas Hanmer. From Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmark . 98 1748—Voltaire. From “Discourse on Ancient and Modern Tragedy” . 105 1749—Henry Fielding. From Tom Jones . 106 1765—Samuel Johnson. From “The Preface to Shakespeare” and “Notes on the Plays,” in The Plays of William Shakespeare . 110 1768—Laurence Sterne. From A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy . 117 1776—Voltaire. From “A Letter from M. Voltaire to the French Académie Containing an Appeal to That Society on the Merits of Shakespeare, Translated from the Original” . 121 1780—Henry Mackenzie. From The Mirror . 124 1795—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. From Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship . 131 t Hamlet in the Nineteenth Century . 137 1809—August Wilhelm von Schlegel. From Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature . 141 1811—Charles Lamb. “On the Tragedies of Shakespeare” . 144 1814—William Hazlitt. “Mr. Kean’s Hamlet,” from Morning Chronicle . 146 1817—William Hazlitt. “Hamlet,” from Characters of Shakespear’s Plays . 150 1818—Samuel Taylor Coleridge. From Lectures and Notes on Shakspere and Other English Poets . 156 1845—Edgar Allan Poe. From “William Hazlitt” . 161 1860—Ivan Turgenev. “Hamlet and Don Quixote: TheTwo Eternal Human Types” . 162 Contents vii 1864—Victor Hugo. From William Shakespeare . 175 1868—James Russell Lowell. “Shakespeare Once More” . 181 1871—Friedrich Nietzsche. From The Birth of Tragedy . 192 1875—George Macdonald. “The Elder Hamlet” . 200 1880—Algernon Charles Swinburne. From “Hamlet,” in A Study of Shakespeare . 206 1884—Matthew Arnold. “Hamlet Once More” . 210 1884—Mark Twain. From The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn . 211 1886—Anatole France. “Hamlet at the Comedie-Française” . 215 1897—Oscar Wilde. “Letter to Lord Alfred Douglas” . 218 t Hamlet in the Twentieth Century . 221 1901—G. K. Chesterton. “The True Hamlet” . 226 1902—Walter de la Mare. “Polonius,” “Ophelia,” and “Hamlet” . 228 1904—A. C. Bradley. From Shakespearean Tragedy . 230 1909—Anna Akhmatova. “Reading Hamlet” . 247 1919—T. S. Eliot. “Hamlet and His Problems” . 248 1922—James Joyce. From Ulysses . 252 1930—G. Wilson Knight. “The Embassy of Death: An Essay on Hamlet” . 264 1951—William Empson. “Hamlet When New,” from The Sewanee Review . 277 1951—Harold C. Goddard. From The Meaning of Shakespeare . 307 1957—Carolyn Heilbrun. “The Character of Hamlet’s Mother,” from Shakespeare Quarterly . 318 1958—Boris Pasternak. “Hamlet,” from Doctor Zhivago . 326 1969—Stephen Booth. “On the Value of Hamlet” . 327 1985—Margaret Ferguson. “Hamlet: Letters and Spirits,” from Shakespeare and the Question of Theory . 349 1986—Harold Bloom. “Introduction,” from Hamlet (Bloom’s Modern Critical Interpretations) . 366 viii Contents 1987—Graham Bradshaw. “Hamlet and the Art of Grafting,” from Shakespeare’s Scepticism . 375 1990—Harold Bloom. “Introduction,” from Hamlet (Major Literary Characters) . 398 1995—Harold Bloom. “Introduction,” from Hamlet (Bloom’s Notes) . 404 t Hamlet in the Twenty-first Century . 407 2005—James Shapiro. From A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare, 1599 . 410 Bibliography . 413 Key Editions . 413 Modern Hamlet Editions . 414 Hamlet Through the Ages: An Essential Bibliography . 415 General Bibliography . 419 Acknowledgments . 427 Index . 429 SERIES INTRODUCTION q Shakespeare Through the Ages presents not the most current of Shakespeare criticism, but the best of Shakespeare criticism, from the seventeenth century to today. In the process, each volume also charts the flow over time of critical discussion of a particular play. Other useful and fascinating collections of his- torical Shakespearean criticism exist, but no collection that we know of contains such a range of commentary on each of Shakespeare’s greatest plays and at the same time emphasizes the greatest critics in our literary tradition: from John Dryden in the seventeenth century, to Samuel Johnson in the eighteenth cen- tury, to William Hazlitt and Samuel Coleridge in the nineteenth century, to A.C. Bradley and William Empson in the twentieth century, to the most per- ceptive critics of our own day. This canon of Shakespearean criticism empha- sizes aesthetic rather than political or social analysis. Some of the pieces included here are full-length essays; others are excerpts designed to present a key point. Much (but not all) of the earliest criticism consists only of brief mentions of specific plays. In addition to the classics of criticism, some pieces of mainly historical importance have been included, often to provide background for important reactions from future critics. These volumes are intended for students, particularly those just beginning their explorations of Shakespeare. We have therefore also included basic materials designed to provide a solid grounding in each play: a biography of Shakespeare, a synopsis of the play, a list of characters, and an explication of key passages. In addition, each selection of the criticism of a particular century begins with an introductory essay discussing the general nature of that century’s commentary and the particular issues and controversies addressed by critics presented in the volume. Shakespeare was “not of an age, but for all time,” but much Shakespeare criticism is decidedly for its own age, of lasting importance only to the scholar who wrote it. Students today read the criticism most readily available to them, which means essays printed in recent books and journals, especially those journals made available on the Internet. Older criticism is too often buried in out-of-print books on forgotten shelves of libraries or in defunct periodicals. Therefore, many ix x Hamlet students, particularly younger students, have no way of knowing that some of the most profound criticism of Shakespeare’s plays was written decades or centuries ago. We hope this series remedies that problem, and more importantly, we hope it infuses students with the enthusiasm of the critics in these volumes for the beauty and power of Shakespeare’s plays. INTRODUCTION BY HAROLD BLOOM q 1 We read to reflect, and to be reflected. Many, if not most of us, can see something of the self reflected in the mirror that Shakespeare supposedly holds up to nature. Oscar Wilde rightly rejected that notion, wittily asserting that it proved Hamlet’s madness as a critic. As Wilde knew well, Hamlet is only mad north-northwest; the wind that blows upon him is mostly from the south. Having written a rather long book on Genius, followed by a short one on Hamlet, I intend here to work though some of the relations between reading and reflection by invoking the genius of Hamlet, meaning both prince and play. I mean “reflection” in Dr. Johnson’s double sense of the word: a mirror is held up to nature, and then the image in the mirror returns us to the mind’s meditation upon itself in relation to that image.