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TheaterNovember 2009 Antique Romans & the Dane On Jude Law in Hamlet, the Atlantic Theater Company's Two Unrelated Plays by David Mamet, Collaborative Stages's House of Yes, and The Retributionists by Daniel Goldfarb. 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 ... This article is available to subscribers and for individual purchaseSubscribe to TNC (Print and Online editions) Subscribe to TNC (Online only) This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 28 November 2009, on page 33 Copyright © 2012 The New Criterion | www.newcriterion.com http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Antique-Romans---the-Dane-4312
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