ABSTRACT
It is the underlying assumption of all traditional literary criticism--and all traditional literature--that characters are really like something. Characters have characteristics, for one, and our job as interpreters is to ferret out essences. We ask of Hamlet (and Hamlet of himself): is he an embittered humanist who cannot act justly in an unjust world; a spineless, overgrown pube who is afraid to die; a psychotic whose thoughts and actions are incoherent and irrational; a little boy paralyzed by oedipal attraction to his mother; or is he all of these, or none, or something else? We debate the question, quote act and scene, cite what we can of Shakespeare’s experience, put the play in historical perspective, and quite possibly, engage vitriol in our exchanges. Thus we plumb the depths of Hamlet’s character. Somewhere in there, in the great masses of data we collect and analyze like unknown alloys, Hamlet is. His essence is theoretically attainable, and the questions we ask about him are soluble.
