File:Henry Irving as Hamlet. From the painting by Sir Edwin Long.jpg

Identifier: shakespeareonsta01wint (find matches)
Title: Shakespeare on the stage
Year: 1911 (1910s)
Authors: Winter, William, 1836-1917
Subjects: Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 Actors Actresses
Publisher: New York, Moffat, Yard and Company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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sword at the left. Around the neck was agold chain, to which was attached a miniature of thedead King. He wore his own hair, which wasabundant, carelessly parted in the middle, and aslight moustache,—which, ultimately, he discarded.The complete effect of his appearance was that ofcombined simplicity, refinement, elegance, and poeticwildness. His personality, expressed in his aspect,riveted attention. The eye followed him; the minddwelt upon him; the imagination was absorbed byhim. In his ideal of Hamlet the elements were com-bined of assumed madness and involuntary, sporadicderangement. The Prince as impersonated by himwas not at any time calmly poised, but at all timesthe actor manifested that perfection of poise whichconsists in the steadiness of intense, continuous excite-ment—burning emotion concentrated at the topmostheight of vitality. The pervading spirit of the imper-sonation was innate, ineffable loveliness of tempera-ment contending with bitterness of feeling wliich has
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HENRY IRVING AS HAMLET FROM THE PAINTING BY SIR EDWIN LONG, A.R.A. HAMLET 363 been engendered by wrong, outrage, and a frenzy ofterror and doubt precipitated by preternatural visita-tion. No other actor of our time made Hamlet moreentirely lovable. WILSON BARRETT AS YOUNG HAMLET. The first line spoken by Hamlet is A little morethan kin and less than kind. That usually has beenunderstood to mean, I am a little more than akinsman to you, because you, my uncle, have becomemy mothers husband; but I am a different sort ofman. The line is a shaft of covert sarcasm. Theshaft, however, is not hurled, because the words arespoken under the breath and are not intended tobe heard by the King and Court. Wilson Barrett, inspeaking that line, made the vowel short in the wordkind and sounded that word as if it were a rhymefor sinned. The word kind, he declared, is anold-country word for child, and Hamlets meaningis, I am more than a kinsman to you but less than ason. That makes the remark a mere stat

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