But it would need a series of volumes to catalogue all the absurdities of another form of Shakespearean criticism, which differs from the preceding, in being in full flower and vigour to-day: we refer to _objectivistic_ criticism. The reason for this is that few are yet fully aware that every kind and example of art is only successful to the extent that it is irradiated with a sentiment, which determines and controls it in all its parts. This used to be denied of certain forms of poetry, particularly of the dramatic; hence the false, but extremely logical deduction, of Leopardi, that the dramatic was the lowest and least noble kind of poetry, because it was the most remote and alien from pure form, which is the lyric. Shakespeare's objectivity of "representation" and the perfect "reality" of his characters, which live their own lives independently are often praised. This can be said in a certain sense, but must not be taken literally, for it is metaphorical; because, when we would reach and handle those images of the poet's sentiment, there may not be an "explosion" (as happened when Faust threw himself upon the phantom of Helen), but in any case they will lose their shape, fall into shreds and vanish before our eyes. In their place will appear an infinite number of insoluble questions as to the manner of understanding or reestablishing their solidity and coherence. What is known as the _Hamlet-Litteratur_ is the most appalling of all these manifestations and it is daily on the increase. Historians, psychologists, lovers of amorous adventures, gossips, police-spies, criminologists investigate the character, the intentions, the thoughts, the affections, the temperament, the previous life, the tricks they played, the secrets they hid, their family and social relations, and so on, and crowd, without any real claim to do so, round the "characters of Shakespeare," detaching them from the creative centre of the play and transferring them into a pretended objective field, as though they were made of flesh and blood.