3 November (1936): After reading Hamlet, Lawrence Durrell, then in his mid-twenties, writes to his mentor Henry Miller, detailing his thoughts on the play. Miller excitedly called the letter a “note for an essay,” and the letter was eventually published in expanded form in The New English Weekly. Durrell and Miller had begun corresponding the year before, when Durrell wrote to Miller after reading his book, The Tropic of Cancer. Miller was impressed and responded, initiating their friendship of over forty years. But as the play goes on, the inner Hamlet, no longer Prince, grows and begins to strip his fellow characters of their masks. The great shock is to find himself alone in life—with no contact—not even with that sweet but silly little wretch Ophelia. Horatio a heart-of-oak dumbbell. Laertes a boring soldier. Polonius a blow-fly. The Queen a toad. Then, realizing that he should really turn away from these fakes to his real self, he feels the pressure of society suddenly on him. He is forced to be the Prince, however much his private Hamlet suffers. It is a marvelous picture of psychic & social disorganization in an individual and Shax was not the only one who found himself trying to write it. The tragedy of Hamlet was the tragedy of the Elizabethan Age. The age which poisoned its young men with the humanities and then showed them none. It is the tragedy of England now, but more advanced, more grey and carious than ever... Keep reading here: theamericanreader/3-november-1936-lawrence-durrell-to-henry-miller/
Posted on: Mon, 03 Nov 2014 16:55:55 +0000
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