ABSTRACT
As men very seldom forget who they are, and are therefore attracted towards works of art which are rooted in egotism and aim at rearranging the refractory world to the artist’s satisfaction, Hamlet is the most popular of Shakespeare’s plays. It is clearly pleasanter to identify oneself with Hamlet, the charming, gifted young prince who transfixes all his enemies with his tongue before transfixing them with his rapier, and for whose sake a beautiful girl drowns herself, than with the old irascible king who misjudges everything and everyone and dies beside the corpse of the daughter who had been murdered through his folly.
