Page 95 - Hamlet: The Cambridge Dover Wilson Shakespeare

Ixxxviii HAMLE T

Devrient or an Edmund Kean—that Shakespeare's
characters were real people, who could be thoroughly
understood by much brooding or 'moping about,' ought
to have resulted in a unity of conception and presenta-
tion. With Kean it did not always. The gist of Hazlitt's
famous criticism of his Hamlet is that he did not see the
character as a whole. To John Kemble, to Macready, to
Henry Irving, Hamlet was a consistent human being, or
at the least a consistent part of a larger artistic design. To
Kean the part was a sequence of impressive moments;
and to make those moments effective he was not above
self-assertion in the wrong places; he was 'too strong and
pointed,' exaggerated in emphasis and manner, too much
the performer, too little the impersonator of a gentleman
and a scholar. Nevertheless, he brought to Hamlet
certain things which others were glad to take over from
him, notably an emphasis (apparently something other
than part of a general exaggeration of points) on Ham-
let's abiding passion for Ophelia, which led him to treat
her without 'the conventional coarseness and almost
brutal ferocity' (writing in 1812 Lamb had protested
against that convention, thus proving its prevalence),
and to come back to her at the end of the 'nunnery'
scene, and kiss her hand. He did away, too, with the
extreme physical terror of Hamlet on seeing the Ghost
(he had a first-rate Ghost in Raymond); he called
it 'Father' with intense pathos which thrilled the
audience, and he followed it with eagerness and con-
fidence, not at the sword's point. In this scene of the
play he abated nothing of Hamlet's wildness, but in the
Closet-scene Mrs Garrick found him 'too tame,' which
meant tamer than Garrick had been. So masterly and
graceful a fencer naturally made the most of the fight with
Laertes, and after 'The rest is silence' he indulged in
a very elaborate death by poison. Miss Smith (Mrs
Bartley) was his Ophelia, Bannister the First Grave-
digger and Dowfon 'made nothing, or worse than
nothing,' of Polonius.