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…
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.
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.