Soliloquies | Ralph Berry (essay date 1989)
Ralph Berry (essay date 1989)
SOURCE: Berry, Ralph. “Hamlet and the Audience: The Dynamics of a Relationship.” In Shakespeare and the Sense of Performance: Essays in the Tradition of Performance Criticism in Honor of Bernard Beckerman, edited by Marvin and Ruth Thompson, pp. 24-8. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1989.
[In the following essay, Berry suggests that through Hamlet's soliloquies, the audience becomes, in effect, his psychological counselor, sympathetically accepting his perspectives on himself and other characters. In Berry's judgment, the lack of soliloquies in Act V reflects Hamlet's recognition that it is now time for him to behave like a man and replace complaints with action.]
The extended ingratiation by which Hamlet develops his special relationship with the audience rests on two factors: the persona of the actor and the sequence of major soliloquies. The persona is, I think, more important than technique....
[The entire page is 2469 words long]
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