The New Criterion

T. S. Eliot called Hamlet the “Mona Lisa of literature,” and he suspected that “more people have thought Hamlet a work of art because they found it interesting than have found it interesting because it is a work of art.” In his brief notes on the play, “Hamlet and His Problems,” Eliot argued that the great temptation is to take Hamlet the character, rather than Hamlet the play, as the relevant question at hand. Which is to say, Eliot saw Hamlet endure into the age of psychology.

Shakespeare had no language for psychology and, having art at his disposal, needed none; in our own leaden times psychology has largely supplanted art and religion, and so the temptation to treat Hamlet as an exercise in psychoanalysis—one that marginalizes the remainder of the drama—is near irresistible. Every performance of Hamlet ...