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244 NOTES ON M. FECHTER'S HAMLET AND OTH...
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XLIV.—NOTES OIST M. FECHTEE-'S HAMLET
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» - BY MS. F. P. FELLOWS.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
"Well! Rome Would Be A Charming Place If...
state and groans of the something weather . 1 mournful " Cassandra albout " shakes " imprudent his head engagements for the last time and ,
, foolish young people / ' and then we separate , and descend reluctantly to our various , homes in the gloomy squalid streets of
modern Rome .
244 Notes On M. Fechter's Hamlet And Oth...
244 NOTES ON M . FECHTER ' S HAMLET AND OTHELLO .
Xliv.—Notes Oist M. Fechtee-'S Hamlet
XLIV . —NOTES _OIST M . _FECHTEE- 'S HAMLET AND OTHELLO .
» - By Ms. F. P. Fellows.
_» - BY MS . _F . P . FELLOWS .
It is scarcely a year ago since the announcement that Hamlet would be played "b y M . Fechter took the London world by surprise .
Hamlet played by a Frenchman ! There was an incongruity in the very thoughtand they who set
forth to witness the first performance went with , some misgiving , and with fond traditions of King Kemble lingering about their
hearts . The curtain rose on the Prince of Denmark , clad in a simple mourning-weed " a shadow like an angel with bright hair . "
, Gone was the Brutus wig , the star , the spangles , and the nodding plumes—vanished , the majestic stride , the measured utterance , the
laboured points , and the time-honoured stage business . The goldenhaired Dane moved about the scene quietlycalmlyas a gentleman
would walk amid his ancestral halls , and spoke , in the , colloquial yet refined tone that such a man would use in converse with his friendSo
Innocent of points , the soliloquies were given brokenly and with pause , as one speaks who imagines himself to be alone . Every line
of Shakespeare ' s noble language was uttered honestly and lovingly ; the slight foreign accent was soon forgotten by the hearer—indeed
whole paragraphs were delivered in perfect English—while the correct emphasis and most clear enunciation , by which not a word escaped
* the ear , was a lesson to every actor on the stage . As the play proceededand the evidences of a most scholarly
interpretation of the text , and , a very subtle conception of the character of Hamletmultiliedthe surprise of the audience gave way to
delight , and , few left p that , night , without returning again and again on subsequent evenings to feast on the most intellectual rendering
ever given of Shakespeare ' s masterpiece . For we have it on the authority of the greatest living commentator on Shakespeare , a most
loving and devout worshipper of the great dramatist , and one who has witnessed the performance of every actor who for the last
halfcentury " Ennobled hath the buskin'd stage , "
that this Frenchman , this compatriot of the Gallic rhapsodists on " the divine Williams / ' is more thoroughly imbued with the
spirit of the poet , has fathomed more deeply the mystery of
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Dec. 1, 1862, page 244, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01121862/page/28/
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