Thursday, November 17, 2011

A Study of A Study of Shakespeare

In Algernon Charles Swineburne's essay, A Study of Shakespeare, he refutes Goethe and Hugo's claims that Hamlet has "unconquerable weakness of the will" and "immedicable skepticism" by claiming that Hamlet simply appears this way because he has "more of a mind than another man to make up." Swineburne argues that Hamlet's clear ability to act quickly throughout various parts of the play shows that he can actually make decisions and his reputation among "the majority of students, not less than to all actors and all editors and all critics" as an irresolute, half-hearted doubter is really unfortunate.
This is a similar view to that of Friedrich Nietzsche, who also said that the reason that Hamlet never gets anything done is because he has too much knowledge. I understand both these men's points that people tend to question themselves before making important decisions, however it is not necessarily only smart people that do this. People question themselves all the time, but it should be the truly intelligent ones, or ones with "more mind" than others, who are able to realize that stuff needs to get done and decisions need to be made. I continue to disagree with this point and stand with all those students, actors, critics and editors who think Hamlet needs to get it together and make his mind up.

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