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Analysis of T.S. Eliot’s Hamlet and His problems

Published in 1919, Hamlet and His Problems may be considered an example of “destructive criticism” in the sense that it challenges the age-old established critical perspectives on a work of art. Eliot puts forward his contention that much of the critical has been devoted to analysing the character of Hamlet, rather than analysing the play, which should be the primary business of the critics. He cites the example of two great minds, Goethe and Coleridge, who also who were not immune to this kind of fallacy and who have substituted “their own Hamlet for Shakespeare’s”. Eliot alleges that instead of studying it as a “ work of art”, they have imposed their personalities on Shakespeare’s Hamlet and “made of Hamlet a Werther” and “ of Hamlet a Coleridge” respectively. Eliot, on the other hand, praises J.M. Robertson and Stoll, who, according to him, tried to shift the critical focus of Hamlet to a right direction by pointing out the genesis of Shakespeare’s play from his predecessors: “ H