" This is, however, essentially an
inartistic practice, and one cannot regret that it has gone out of
fashion. Another point to be considered is this: are Othello and Lear
really very complex character-studies? They are extremely vivid: they
are projected with enormous energy, in actions whose violence affords
scope for the most vehement self-expression; but are they not, in
reality, colossally simple rather than complex? It is true that in Lear
the phenomena of insanity are reproduced with astonishing minuteness and
truth; but this does not imply any elaborate analysis or demand any
great space. Hamlet is complex; and were I "talking for victory," I
should point out that _Hamlet_ is, of all the tragedies, precisely the
one which does not come within the frame of the picture. But the true
secret of the matter does not lie here: it lies in the fact that Hamlet
unpacks his heart to us in a series of soliloquies--a device employed
scarcely at all in the portrayal of Othello and Lear, and denied to the
modern dramatist.
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