Quote: while Shakespeare's imagination and thoughts are real, there is not an objective Hamlet

Quotation

There is only one world, the "real" world: Shakespeare's imagination is part of it, and the thoughts that he had in writing Hamlet are real. So are the thoughts that we have in reading the play. But it is of the very essence of fiction that only the thoughts, feelings, etc., in Shakespeare and his readers are real, and that there is not, in addition to them, an objective Hamlet. When you have taken account of all the feelings roused by Napoleon in writers and readers of history, you have not touched the actual man; but in the case of Hamlet you have come to the end of him. ... The sense of reality is vital to logic, and whoever juggles with it by pretending that Hamlet has another kind of reality is doing a disservice to thought.   Google-1   Google-2

Published before 1923

Additional Titles

Quote: reality is vital to logic; should not allow Hamlet as another kind of reality

Related Topics

Topic: meaning without reference (31 items)
Topic: metaphysics and epistemology (65 items)