7.1.3
Romantic Commentary on Hamlet
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Romantic Period Responses to Hamlet - Coleridge & Hazlitt
The Romantic period spanned the late 18th century to the early 19th century.
What did the Romantics focus on?
- The Romantic period of English literature saw writers such as William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge - joint authors of the hugely influential Lyrical Ballads published in 1798 - explore their fascination with individuals at odds with their societies and with the power of the imagination rather than logic and reason.
Colerige identifies with Hamlet
- Commentators throughout this period tended to be much more sympathetic towards Hamlet. Many writers identified with him.
- Coleridge imagined that he had a “smack of Hamlet” in himself. By this, he meant that Hamlet, like himself, suffered from an “overbalance of the imaginative power”.
Coleridge on Hamlet's mind
- According to Coleridge, Hamlet’s mind is “disturbed” by a lack of “balance” between the “real and the imaginary worlds”.
- Hamlet suffers because his imagination, full of images of corruption and decay which he alone can see, overpowers him.
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Hazlitt on Hamlet's speeches
- Many other commentators looked ‘inwards’ to try to understand the play’s hero, searching for a psychological explanation for Hamlet’s delay.
- William Hazlitt wrote in 1817 that Hamlet’s speeches and soliloquies “are as real as our own thoughts”. As such, we can think of Hamlet as a “real” person with a “real” mind.
Hazlitt's definition of Hamlet
- Hazlitt defines Hamlet as “the prince of philosophical speculators” who, because he cannot accomplish a “perfect” revenge, “declines it altogether”.
- For Hazlitt, Hamlet is compelled to “indulge his imagination” rather than act.
Romantic Period Responses to Hamlet - Shelley & Others
The Romantic period spanned the late 18th century to the early 19th century.
Wilhelm von Schlegel: Hamlet's thoughts
- The German poet, August Wilhelm von Schlegel, argued that Hamlet loses himself in “labyrinths of thought” without “end or beginning”.
- As a result, his thoughts “cripple” Hamlet from taking action.
Shelley: Hamlet in thought
- Percy Bysshe Shelley also saw Hamlet as someone too prone to lose himself in thought: “his profound meditations seem without beginning or end, while he wanders in a wilderness of thought”.
- Shelley thought that whenever Hamlet did act, his instinct was to reproach himself: “Whenever he does anything, he seems astonished at himself, and calls it rashness.”
Lamb: identifies with shy Hamlet
- Charles Lamb identified with a Hamlet who he saw as delicate and sensitive (“shy, negligent, retiring”) and uncomfortable with his role as revenge hero.
Dramatic poem
- Many commentators began to express a view that Hamlet should be considered more of a dramatic poem than a play to be performed on stage.
- Wordsworth, Coleridge, Lamb etc. felt that no actor could do the role of Hamlet justice because of its psychological complexity.
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Hazlitt's account of Kemble
- In 1817, Hazlitt claimed that “There is no play that suffers so much in being transferred to the stage”.
- Hazlitt gave a detailed account of John Phillip Kemble, one of the most successful and celebrated actors of the early 19th century, playing the role of Hamlet, judging him to be “too deliberate and formal… too strong and pointed.”
- However, this is simply because “Hamlet himself seems hardly capable of being acted.”
1Introduction
2Plot Summary
2.1Act 1: Key Events & Ideas
2.2Act 2: Key Events & Ideas
2.3Act 3: Key Events & Ideas
2.4Act 4: Key Events & Ideas
2.5Act 5: Key Events & Ideas
3Character Profiles
3.1Hamlet
3.3Gertrude
3.4Ophelia
4Key Themes
4.1Regicide in Hamlet
4.2Madness in Hamlet
4.3Guilt & Punishment in Hamlet
4.4Settings in Hamlet
5Writing Techniques
6Context
6.1Social & Historical Context
6.2Literary Context
6.3Performance & Textual History
7Critical Debates
7.118-19th Century Responses to Hamlet
7.220th Century Responses to Hamlet
7.3Feminist Readings of Hamlet
7.4Marxist/Political Readings of Hamlet
Jump to other topics
1Introduction
2Plot Summary
2.1Act 1: Key Events & Ideas
2.2Act 2: Key Events & Ideas
2.3Act 3: Key Events & Ideas
2.4Act 4: Key Events & Ideas
2.5Act 5: Key Events & Ideas
3Character Profiles
3.1Hamlet
3.3Gertrude
3.4Ophelia
4Key Themes
4.1Regicide in Hamlet
4.2Madness in Hamlet
4.3Guilt & Punishment in Hamlet
4.4Settings in Hamlet
5Writing Techniques
6Context
6.1Social & Historical Context
6.2Literary Context
6.3Performance & Textual History
7Critical Debates
7.118-19th Century Responses to Hamlet
7.220th Century Responses to Hamlet
7.3Feminist Readings of Hamlet
7.4Marxist/Political Readings of Hamlet
Practice questions on Romantic Commentary on Hamlet
Can you answer these? Test yourself with free interactive practice on Seneca — used by over 10 million students.
- 1What is Hamlet **"disturbed by"**, according to Coleridge?Multiple choice
- 2What did Hazlitt say of *Hamlet* in 1817? True / false
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