In all commentating upon Shakespeare there has been a radical error never yet mentioned. It is the error of attempting to expound his characters – to account for their actions – to reconcile his inconsistencies – not as if they were to coinage of a human brain, but [as] if they had been actual existencies upon earth. We talk of Hamlet the man, instead of Hamlet the dramatis persona – of Hamlet that God, in place of Hamlet that Shakespeare, created. If Hamlet had really lived, and if the tragedy were an accurate reco5d of his deeds, from this record (with some trouble) we might, it is true, reconcile his inconsistencies, and settle to our satisfaction his true character. But the task becomes the purest absurdity when we deal only with a phantom. It is not (then) the inconsistencies of the acting man which we have as a subject of discussion – (although we proceed as if it were, and thus inevitably err,) but the whims and vacillations – the conflicting energies and indolences of the poet. It seems to us little less than a miracle that this obvious point should have been overlooked.