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Why I Only Read the First Chapter: Here's the first paragraph of the first chapter: Hamlet is a play of ideas. The problems of Hamlet exist for an audience as the result of the dramatic presentation of a number of complex intellectual and emotional questions. These moral and political problems are realized within the context of a murder story which involves three families, and an entire state, in a deeply disturbing conflict of love and hate. This discord is enacted in physical and psychological conditions which force an audience towards a definition of the terms of courage, honour, and revenge which the characters use as justification for their actions. The spectator's attention is particularly focused upon these problems through the character of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. (1)Sounds deep, but after reading the chapter, I didn't understand a thing. No luck on the second reading, either. I couldn't name a single one of the "complex intellectual and emotional questions" or the "moral and political problems." I could guess who was involved in the "conflict of love and hate," but I couldn't remember that Alexander said anything about it. And so on. Also, Alexander annoyed me by writing many paragraphs such as the following: Hamlet's argument with himself, conducted in soliloquy, is deliberately inconclusive because the dramatist needed to create an unconscious as well as a conscious side of Hamlet's mind. This part of Hamlet's mind, as will be demonstrated, makes a vital contribution to the argument of Hamlet. This argument is conducted in the terms of the actions of poison, play, and duel which the actors must perform if they are to present the play. A dramatic argument, however, is a series of more or less accurate observations which have been arranged in a systematic pattern in order to convey the maximum amount of information with the greatest possible clarity to an audience. A dramatic argument is not a divine revelation. It is essential to be as aware of the limitations of the theatre as of its possibilities. (12)I could not figure out what the end of the paragraph had to do with the beginning. Bottom Line: Meandering and confusing. |