lem that have up to the present been offered, and from a psychological point of view this inadequacy is still more evident. The aim of the present paper is to expound an hypothesis which Freud some nine years ago suggested in one of the footnotes to his Traumdeutung;[1] so far as I am aware it has not been critically discussed since its publication. Before attempting this it will be necessary to make a few general remarks about the nature of the problem and the previous solutions that have been offered.
The problem presented by the tragedy of Hamlet is one of peculiar interest in at least two respects. In the first place the play is almost universally considered to be the chief masterpiece of one of the greatest minds the world has known. It probably expresses the core of Shakspere's philosophy and outlook on life as no other work of his does, and so far excels all his other writings that many competent critics would place it on an entirely separate level from them. It may be expected, therefore, that anything which will give us the key to the inner meaning of the play will necessarily give us the clue to much of the deeper workings of Shakspere's mind. In the second place the intrinsic interest of the play is exceedingly great. The central mystery in it, namely the cause of Hamlet's hesitancy in seeking to obtain revenge for the murder of his father, has weH been called the Sphinx of modern Literature.[2] It has given rise to a regiment of hypotheses, and to a large library of critical and controversial literature; this is mainly German and for the most part has grown up in the past fifty years. No review of the literature will here be attempted, for this is obtainable in the writings of Loening,[3] Döring,[4] and others, but the main points of view that have been adopted must be briefly mentioned.
Of the solutions that have been offered many will probably live on account of their very extravagance.[5] Allied if not belonging to this group are the hypotheses that see in Hamlet allegorical tendencies of various kinds. Thus Gerth[6] sees in
- ↑ S. 183.
- ↑ It is but fitting that Freud should have solved the riddle of this Sphinx, as he has that of the Theban one.
- ↑ Loening: Die Hamlet-Tragödie Shakespeares, 1893. This book is warmly to be recommended, for it is by far the most critical work on the subject.
- ↑ Döring: Bin Jahrhundert deutscher Hamlet-Kritik. Die Kritik, 1897, Nr. 131.
- ↑ Such, for instance, is the view developed by Vining (The Mystery of Hamlet, 1881) that Hamlet's weakness is to be explained by the fact that he was a woman wrongly brought up as a man.
- ↑ Gerth: Der Hamlet von Shakespeare, 1861.
