As a teenager, it generally annoys me when people make sweeping generalizations about teenagers, which hardly seems strange. It doesn't help, either, that usually such stereotypes are negative ones, regarding laziness, or rebellion, or some other such nonsense. Reading about Hamlet, however, has prompted a discovery of one writer who makes very interesting observations about teenagers: T. S. Eliot.
I know, I know, this was supposed to be about Shakespeare, but I'm getting to that part in a bit. In an essay titled Hamlet, and published in 1919, Eliot describes an "intense feeling, ecstatic or terrible, without an object or exceeding its object, [which] is something which every person of sensibility has known" and "often occurs in adolescence". The intense feeling! Those intense excessive feelings! Have you not felt them? Have you not known them, in all their intensity? Hopefully they have not driven you partway to madness, to the fate of Hamlet. Hopefully you have dealt with them, one way or another -- and in doing so, classified yourself as "ordinary" or as an "artist" because, as Eliot writes, they present a simple dichotomy. "The ordinary person puts these feelings to sleep, or trims down his feelings to fit the business world; the artist keeps them alive by his ability to intensify the world to his emotions". Eliot does not rank one above the other, though as a writer he hardly has to; all the world knows the writer's choice, and surely he would not have chosen the inferior path? In Eliot's mind, then, the artist is superior -- ha! As if ranking were ever so simple as one choice cleanly above the other.
There is a third choice, though, in this dichotomy of emotions, and that is quite simple: to still be choosing. Of course, by living as a metaphorical (or literal, who knows?) adolescent, one runs the risk of ending up like Hamlet, seeking emotional relief through madness just to express that intense feeling. Though, as Eliot points out, Hamlet is not an adolescent, and "he has not that explanation and excuse" though I'm not sure I agree that only people between certain ages have license to act with intensity. Hamlet, instead, is an adult who was unable to choose a path, and yet cannot remain undecided, on consequence of possible madness and conflict and yes, death. Yikes. Maybe he should have chosen, but which would he have picked? Ignore his desire and supernatural imperative for revenge, or commit the murder at his first opportunity, with all his righteous rage, and ignore the consequences? Would either option really be that much more sane?
Which is better?
Well?
Come on, Hamlet, what do you want to be when you grow up?
And don't say happy, I've learned people don't accept that one.
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