It may
be that, for the purposes of tragedy, the highest point was reached
during the progress of these changes, in the most critical passages of
_Othello_, _King Lear_ and _Macbeth_.[31]

2

Suppose you were to describe the plot of _Hamlet_ to a person quite
ignorant of the play, and suppose you were careful to tell your hearer
nothing about Hamlet's character, what impression would your sketch make
on him? Would he not exclaim: 'What a sensational story! Why, here are
some eight violent deaths, not to speak of adultery, a ghost, a mad
woman, and a fight in a grave! If I did not know that the play was
Shakespeare's, I should have thought it must have been one of those
early tragedies of blood and horror from which he is said to have
redeemed the stage'? And would he not then go on to ask: 'But why in the
world did not Hamlet obey the Ghost at once, and so save seven of those
eight lives?'

This exclamation and this question both show the same thing, that the
whole story turns upon the peculiar character of the hero. For without
this character the story would appear sensational and horrible; and yet
the actual _Hamlet_ is very far from being so, and even has a less
terrible effect than _Othello_, _King Lear_ or _Macbeth_. And again, if
we had no knowledge of this character, the story would hardly be
intelligible; it would at any rate at once suggest that wondering
question about the conduct of the hero; while the story of any of the
other three tragedies would sound plain enough and would raise no such
question. It is further very probable that the main change made by
Shakespeare in the story as already represented on the stage, lay in a
new conception of Hamlet's character and so of the cause of his delay.
And, lastly, when we examine the tragedy, we observe two things which
illustrate the same point. First, we find by the side of the hero no
other figure of tragic proportions, no one like Lady Macbeth or Iago, no
one even like Cordelia or Desdemona; so that, in Hamlet's absence, the
remaining characters could not yield a Shakespearean tragedy at all.
And, secondly, we find among them two, Laertes and Fortinbras, who are
evidently designed to throw the character of the hero into relief. Even
in the situations there is a curious parallelism; for Fortinbras, like
Hamlet, is the son of a king, lately dead, and succeeded by his brother;
and Laertes, like Hamlet, has a father slain, and feels bound to avenge
him. And