This contrasts the identification process of medieval works, in which the reader was encouraged to identify with a hero's inhuman qualities -- inhuman virtue in the case of books of chivalry. In those works the reader was called to identify himself with a god -- or even God proper -- but in Hamlet the reader is called only to identify himself with another, equally flawed man.

Finally, in the question of denouement the treatment is also renaissance; the answer, ambiguous at best. Whether Hamlet leaves Denmark improved is anyone's guess; whether anyone in this story was able to make a difference is tangential to the question. The question, it seems, is not whether Hamlet will be able to overcome his uncle, but whether he will be able to overcome himself. The treatment implies that even if a man is able to overcome himself, it may still be impossible to change...
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