Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/7



It is one of the oddities of Shakspere-criticism that, in the mass of exegesis and philosophizing which has grown up about 'Hamlet,' one of the most conspicuous and important scenes in the whole piece should have received comparatively little attention. The performance of the play within the play before the assembled court is of the highest dramatic significance. Beneath the thinnest disguise of lip-civility, the opposing wills of the villain and the hero meet in a struggle of uncommon tensity, the consequences of which are of the greatest moment for them both. The scene occupies a place about midway in the third act, a position in which Shakspere frequently set climactic action. Its importance is enhanced by its pageantry; even on the Elizabethan stage it must have been given with some elaborateness, with rich costumes and courtly ceremonial, with torches carried by the guard, and with the music of drums, trumpets and hautboys. Shakspere can hardly have failed to consider with some care the dramatic significance of the details of the action, as well as the total effect of the scene and its relation to the rest of the play.

The whole episode is, however, full of difficulties, and the more attentively it is studied the more perplexing these are likely to appear. Discussion has hitherto concerned chiefly the "dozen or sixteen lines" which Hamlet tells the First Player he intends to set down and insert in the play—a distinctly minor question. It is