...latest of a long series, which goes back to Goethe if not before; Goethe, whose formula, "a beautiful, pure, noble and most moral nature, without the strength of nerve which makes the hero, sinking beneath a burden which it can neither bear nor throw off",1 is the earliest...

...Hamlet is like an oak tree planted in a costly jar, which should have borne only pleasant flowers in its bosom: the roots expand, the jar is shivered."...of nerve which forms a hero, sinks beneath a burden it cannot bear and must not cast away. All duties are holy to him: the present is too heavy." 1•...

...weak and effeminate: "a lovely, pure and most moral nature, without the strength of nerve that makes a hero, sinks beneath a burden which it cannot bear and must not cast away." The implication is that Hamlet ought to have killed the King at once; also that loveliness, purity,...

...effects of a great action laid .upon a soul unfit for the performance of it," and he says of Hamlet, "A lovely, pure, noble, and most moral nature, without...of nerve which forms a hero, sinks beneath a burden it cannot bear and must not cast away" (Carlyle's translation). 184.3/182.3 A HESITATING SOUL TAKING...

...nature of the hero the play gives grounds for conflicting and contradictory estimations, from Goethe's "lovely, pure, noble and most moral nature, without the strength of nerve that makes a hero", or Dover Wilson's "the most adorable of heroes", to Salvador de Madariaga's description...

...talks of the play as depicting "a great action laid upon a soul unfit for the performance of it. ... A lovely, pure, noble, and most moral nature, without the strength of nerve which forms a hero." 4 But what is the great action? Schlegel is less sympathetic: "He [Hamlet] has a natural inclination...

...into its bosom only lovely flowers; the roots spread out, the jar is shivered to pieces. A beautiful, pure, noble, and most moral nature, without the strength of nerve which makes the hero, sinks beneath a burden which it can neither bear nor throw off . . .'7 The phallic...

...entirely positive, indeed exemplary, but non-heroic individual in a situation which calls for heroism: A lovely, pure, noble and most moral nature, without...which forms a hero, sinks beneath a burden which it can neither bear nor cast away. All duties are sacred for him; the present one too hard. Impossibilities...

...of a great action laid upon a soul unfit for the performance of it'; of Hamlet himself he remarks: 'a lovely, pure, noble, and most moral nature, without...of nerve which forms a hero, sinks beneath a burden it cannot bear and must not cast away'. See too Hamlet HI. i. 56-9. 176.5 asinkapace; neatsleather:...

...perception, but always coupled with a consequential unworldliness. As he summarized it: A beautiful, pure, noble, and most moral nature, without the strength of nerve which makes the hero, sinks beneath a burden which it can neither bear nor throw off; every duty is holy...