ABSTRACT
There is no better illustration of the need for a study of the genesis of the Shakespeare Plays than the endless discussion of the aesthetic problem of Hamlet. It has continued for two centuries, latterly with the constant preoccupation of finding a formula which shall reduce the play to aesthetic consistency ; and every solution in turn does but ignore some of the data which motived the others. All alike are inconclusive, because all ignore in effect, even when they make mention of it, the essential fact that Shakespeare's Hamlet is an adaptation of an older play, which laid down the main action, embodying a counter-sense which the adaptation could not transmute. To constate the successive theses is to make this clear.
