gestions offered above in connection with the Hamlet problem.[1] The story thus interpreted would run somewhat as follows: As a child Hamlet had experienced the warmest affection for his mother, and this, as is always the case, had contained elements of a more or less dimly defined erotic quality. The presence of two traits in the Queen's character go to corroborate this assumption, namely her markedly sensual nature, and her passionate fondness for her son. The former is indicated in too many places in the play to need specific reference, and is generally recognised. The latter is equally manifest; as Claudius says (Act IV, Sc. 7, 1. n), "The Queen his mother lives almost by his looks." Hamlet seems, however, to have with more or less success weaned himself from her, and to have fallen in love with Ophelia. The precise nature of his original feeling for Ophelia is a little obscure. We may assume that at least in part it was composed of a normal love for a prospective bride, but there are indications that even here the influence of the old attraction for his mother is still exerting itself. Although some writers, following Goethe,[2] see in Ophelia many traits of resemblance to the Queen, surely more striking are the traits contrasting with those of the Queen. Whatever truth there may be in the many German conceptions of Ophelia as a sensual wanton[3]–misconceptions that have been adequately disproved by Loening[4] and others still the very fact that it needed what Goethe happily called the "innocence of insanity" to reveal the presence of any such libidinous thoughts in itself demonstrates the modesty and chasteness of her habitual demeanour. Her naive piety, her obedient resignation and her unreflecting simplicity sharply contrast with the Queen's character, and seem to indicate that Hamlet by a characteristic reaction towards the opposite extreme had unknowingly been impelled to choose a woman who would least remind him of his mother. A case might
- ↑ Here, as throughout this essay, I closely follow Freud's interpretation given in the footnote previously referred to. He there points out the inadequacy of the earlier explanations, deals with Hamlet's feelings toward his mother, father and uncle, and mentions two other matters that will presently be discussed, the significance of Hamlet's reaction against Ophelia and of the fact that the play was written immediately after the death of Shakspere's father.
- ↑ Goethe: Wilhelm Meister, IV, 14. "Ihr gauzes Wesen schwebt in reifer, siisser Sinnlichkeit." "Ihre Einbildungskraft ist angesteckt, ihre stille Bescheidenheit atmet eine liebevolle Begierde, und spllte die bequeme Gottin Gelegenheit das Baumschen schiitteln, so wiirde die Frucht sogleich herabfallen."
- ↑ Storffrich: Psychologische Aufschiisse iiber Shakespeare's Hamlet, 1859, S. 131; Dietrich, Op. cit., S. 129; Tieck: Dramaturgische Blatter, II, S. 85, etc.
- ↑ Loening: Op. cit., Cap. XIII. Charakter und I^iebe Ophelias.
