64 L. A. Sherman 



brought to Hamlet? In the most spectacular and effective way. 

 He should appear on the platform before the castle, against the 

 background of the sea. Whom shall the ghost accost ? Warders, 

 now first placed on guard, because of the threatened invasion, 

 fronting the approach from Norway. What warders, how dis- 

 posed towards the new king, in relation to the late king whom 

 he has displaced? 



This is the intimate and vital matter. It would be natural for 

 the sentinels to mention and discuss, with anybody and every- 

 body, the visit of the dead king's ghost. News of it would 

 spread quickly throughout the castle and the town. But the king 

 must not know, no one belonging to the party of the king is to 

 be told. What party then may know? The party of course of 

 Hamlet, who is to avenge. But how shall the sentries be plaus- 

 ibly of Hamlet's ' party,' and not of the king's ? Because the 

 proper guardsmen of the castle are to be, not Danes, but Switzers. 

 How are the ghost and Hamlet to be brought together ? Through 

 Horatio, school friend of Hamlet's, of whose arrival Hamlet 

 does not yet know. Why does Hamlet not yet know? Because 

 he is mewed up with his grief. Where are the ghost and Hamlet 

 to hold their secret conference? In the vacant space, among 

 the rocks, in the rear of the castle.^^ 



The construction of the play is now clearly indicated. Going 

 over from the stage side to the audience, we can forecast the 

 plan. In the second scene of the First Act, we are to discern 

 the tremendous personality of the hero, and to conceive and 

 desire that he come to his own and his best, and that Denmark 

 have the future that his princely daring promises. This ' con- 

 summation ' grapples us to the story with hoops of steel. 



The minor involvement of the plot is managed more brilliantly 

 than in any other of Shakespeare's plays. It is progressive. At 

 the very opening we are made to feel that some wish or will from 

 the unseen world is in exercise towards some inmate of Kron- 

 berg castle. At the end of the First Act, this vague feeling 



32 Shakespeare's knowledge of Kronberg, as of Elsinore, seems personal, 

 and somewhat bears out the supposition that he was of a company of actors 

 that stopped to play in Denmark on their way to Germany. 



1 66 



