perfect, a model to young and old, of irreproachable virtue and of all
wonderful qualities. In the course of the play, however, he shows
himself very nimble-witted, credulous, and impulsive, quick to anger and
quicker still to forgive; with thoughts all turned to sadness and to
musing; a poet--ever in extremes; now hating his own rash errors to the
point of demanding the heaviest punishment for them; now swearing that
he will revenge himself on women by writing against them; a
philosopher--he jests with his gaoler and consoles himself with
despairing speculation in the very presence of the Arch-Fear. All these
are manifestly characteristics of Hamlet, and Posthumus possesses no
others.
So far, then, from finding that Shakespeare never revealed himself in
his dramas, I have shown that he pictured himself as the hero [Footnote:
A hypercritic might contend that Jaques was not the hero of "As You Like
It"; but the objection really strengthens my argument. Shakespeare makes
of Jaques, who is merely a secondary character without influence on the
action, the principal person in the play simply because in Jaques he
satisfied his own need of self-revealing.] of six plays written at
widely different times; in fact that, like Rembrandt, he painted his own
portrait in all the critical periods of life: as a sensuous youth given
over to love and poetry in Romeo; a few years later as a melancholy
onlooker at life's pageant in Jaques; in middle age as the passionate,
melancholy, aesthete-philosopher of kindliest nature in Hamlet and
Macbeth; as the fitful Duke incapable of severity in "Measure for
Measure," and finally, when standing within the shadow, as Posthumus, an
idealized yet feebler replica of Hamlet.
CHAPTER IV
SHAKESPEARE'S MEN OF ACTION: THE BASTARD, ARTHUR, AND KING RICHARD II.
It is time now, I think, to test my theory by considering the converse
of it. In any case, the attempt to see the other side, is pretty sure to
make for enlightenment, and may thus justify itself. In the mirror which
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