Page 69 - Hamlet: The Cambridge Dover Wilson Shakespeare

kii HAMLE T

The second point I wish to make about Hamlet
concerns his behaviour rather than his 'character.' The
fact that he is liable to sudden, attacks of ungovernable
excitement or anger has not passed unobserved by critics,
but they seem scarcely to have made as much of it as the
text warrants; and since it is a matter of vital concern not
only for the performance of the part but also for the
interpretation of the action, I make no apology for
stressing it. Hamlet appears to be subject to such an
attack on at least six occasions and possibly on a seventh
also. The first is in the Cellarage-scene, when in reaction
from the tension of his interview with the Ghost he
gives way to a fit of extravagant levity and utters those
'wild and whirling words' for which Horatio gently
rebukes him, words which later become still wilder. Of
the second we learn from Ophelia's account of his strange
conduct in her closet; the words—

And with a look so piteous in purport
As if he had been loosed out of hell
To speak of horrors—
clearly denoting, to my mind, the after-effects of some
delirium, for which he sought consolation in her presence.
He works himself up to a third attack as he unpacks his
heart with words of self-reproach in the soliloquy at the
end of 2. 2. The Nunnery-scene, after the question
'Where's your father?' affords the fourth instance, the
latter half of the Bedroom-scene gives the fifth, and
the Graveyard-scene the sixth, while I think there
is a display of uncontrolled excitement, again marked
by a moderating comment from Horatio, after the exit
of the King in the Play-scene.
These outbursts are different in tone; some are
delirious, some savage, some sarcastic; but they possess
one feature in common, hysteria or lack of balance.
Moreover, they seem to be quite involuntary, and to be
generally associated with a mood from the opposite end
of the emotional scale, a mood of tenderness, solemnity