Pictorial Shakespeare, 1880-1890 - eTheses Repository - University ...

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removal was essential to Barrett f s presentation of a young
Hamlet, and caused co:ne controversy as to what libertiec
might be token with the text. The accusation was not that of
cutting linea (after all, no-one expected to hear the whole
play) but of ignoring evidence devisod by the playwright to
clarify the character's nature and outlook.
; 'ore interesting than the display of »/ould-be pedantry
or the port of the journalists were Clement Scott«c consents
on the setting of the graveyard scene. He objected to "fir
trees and Scandinavian gloom,... temples, and mausoleums, and
scattered crosses", and maintained thot Shakespeare had
conceived the scene as an English churchyard, picturesquely
beautiful and veil-Wanted with flowersj
No jour;icys to Denmark, no f, ithful copies of
Dani.-n churchen or graveyards, no ugly reproductions
of what is foreign to the mind or
underctnnding will ever take the imagination
away from tho scene that Shakespeare loved and
so faithfully painted.
Scott uid not reveal his warrant for the a:. aunv> oion that
Shake ;:p care "painted" any such ccene: the grave., ;.rd ic at no
point described, and the only flov.ers mentioned in the text
are the violets th t Laertes hopes will spring from Ophelia's
"fair and unpolluted flesh". The form taken by acot'u's c!i:,trste
for Godwin's efforts - a bland, sentiuontr:! ;-:cnop.l iobir». -
anticipates that of his attacks upon Ibsen, whose Ghoot.a
"mi ;ht have been a trrge.'y had it been treated by a cnius"
as on-nosed to the Scandinavian "egotist and.. .bungler" (±ILQ_
Daily Telegraph, .U Mar h 1891) 32 . Scott, tocetlie.r v.dt:: a
number of other reviewers, :;.vc the impression th.it the
production's preci^io^ of detail v;ac an affront to a traditional
and ro;.r,ntic vr:.giiericss. In the notice wliich npno^rod
in The Morning Port it wiis accerted tliot "r. certain rir of
realism" Ci; tin ;uir;:ied the production, and tiiat the "goner,"!
rendering" ;vns "r.tril^iif: and impressive rather tli n poetical".
This kind of criticism ic often net with ±? notices of mr-jor
ShakeFpearc n pro actions during the ei.^itcen-ei; htieo, and
it m,fht seem to be related to the A?f;th:.tic rejection of
detail and "finish" i.a pc i. tiiv:. Its true narout, however, is
surely the conservative reaction ciri;ui:>:t Pro-^.phaclitian thr t