An Obscure Window to the Prince's Past

Have you ever heard of a tale about an unfortunate prince whose uncle takes his dead (murdered) father's throne and marries his mother? No, it's not Prince Charming. This one's a bit more tragic: eight people, including the main character, end up dying in the course of the story. Although the story plot may seem a bit harsh or boring at times, the author's dynamic usage of literary devices keeps the reader entertained and puzzles the minds of many. Yes, it's the one and only play that we all know of: Shakespeare's Hamlet.
What makes this play so interesting is the surplus amount of different aspects and personalities that the main character, Hamlet, has. In one of the scenes, Hamlet goes through six different states of minds in only one soliloquy. Hamlet's indecisive personality is exceedingly diverse that even Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, a great actor who once took Hamlet's role while presenting the play, had problems fully analyzing him.

For the most part, I do agree with Goethe's analysis on Hamlet. But, the strategy he used seems to be a bit ambiguous and inaccurate. He first tried to characterize how Hamlet was before the king's death (before the beginning of the play) by using small hints scattered all around the whole book. He then stepped in the shoes of the made-up "past Hamlet" and tried to imagine what it would feel like to be in his situation. Then, he assumed that Hamlet would have probably felt the same way as he did. This strategy might seem ingenious, and I have to admit, it was a pretty clever idea, but the hints shown in the play about Hamlet's past personality is minimal. In fact, one can argue that his multiple-sided personality was exactly the same before his father's death. There are many scenes that show the reader that Hamlet doesn't actually feel much of anything, but is rather smart in getting what he wants Furthermore, Goethe, ironically, contradicts his own method of using Hamlet's past to develop his character. He stated, "his past condition he remembers as a vanished dream."
He just implied that Hamlet's past has nothing to do with his present condition and yet, he tries to use little insinuations about the past to determine the peculiar idiosyncrasies of the character.

Sounds like a hypocrite to me. But who knows, maybe Goethe is following Shakespeare's guidelines of literary devices and using irony himself to interpret Hamlet's feelings. He just doesn't know it.