Romantic Hamlets

Introducing Shakespeare: A Graphic Guide - Nick Groom, Piero 2013

Romantic Hamlets

But it was not just the sphinx-like Shakespeare with whom the Romantics identified. They lived through his characters too, internalized them from the page rather than in performance. Coleridge claimed that…

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HAMLET WAS THE PLAY, OR RATHER HAMLET HIMSELF WAS THE CHARACTER, IN THE INTUITION AND EXPOSITION OF WHICH I FIRST MADE MY TURN FOR PHILOSOPHICAL CRITICISM…

Coleridge lectured on Hamlet’s character as …

all meditation, all resolution as far as words are

concerned, but all hesitation and irresolution when

called upon to act; so that resolving to do everything

he in fact does nothing … doing nothing but resolve.

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I ALSO BECOME ABSORBED IN HAMLET’S CHARACTER WHILE TRYING TO REHEARSE IT. I HAVE A SMACK OF HAMLET MYSELF, IF I MAY SAY SO.