Edwin Booth's Hamlet was categorized as the "unbalanced Genius" whose energy fuelled his intelligence. Like many who played Hamlet after him, Booth's Hamlet shows intelligence that leads him to the brink of insanity and only barely saved him from it. Booth stated that "Hamlet's mind, at the very edge of frenzy, seeks its relief in ribaldry" (Woods 179). Unfortunatley, some thought that Booth's intelligent interpretation left Hamlet a bit emotionless.
Hamlet , Edwin Booth (1866)
Left: Edwin Booth as Hamlet circa 1866.
Reviews
"The trouble with Booth, paradoxically, is that he is a 'purely intellectual man.' The Great actors of Hamlet in the past did not apply to the role the 'microscopic eye of reason' ; they seized upon the character 'with their instincts or their feelings.'"
-Nym Crinkle, World, qtd. in "The Hamlet of Edwin Booth" (Shattuck).