‘Most certainly an artistic failure.’ All argument is for that conclusion—until you read or see Hamlet again. And when you do, you are left saying that if this is failure, then failure is better than success. We want more of these ‘bad’ plays. From our first childish reading of the ghost scenes down to those golden minutes which we stole from marking examination papers on Hamlet to read a few pages of Hamlet itself, have we ever known the day or the hour when its enchantment failed? . . . It has a taste of its own, an all-pervading relish which we recognize even in its smallest fragments, and which, once tasted, we recur to. When we want that taste, no other book will do instead.
Selected Literary Essays
(from “Hamlet: The Prince or The Poem?”)