Madness and Insanity in Shakespeares Hamlet - Hamlet and Insanity Essa

small town and Insanity William Shakespeares supreme tragic drama Hamlet does not answer in full for m either in the audience the pivotal question concerning the sanity of Hamlet whether it is totally feigned or not. Let us treat this government issue in detail, along with critical comment. George Lyman Kittredge in the Introduction to The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, explains the princes rationale behind the entirely pretended hallucination In Shakespeares drama, however, Hamlets motive for acting the madman is obvious. We speak unguardedly in the presence of children and madmen, for we take it for granted that they will not listen or will not understand and so the King or the fairy (for Hamlet does not know that his receive is ignorant of her husbands crime) may say something that will afford the evidence needed to hold the testimony of the Ghost. (xii) Critical opinion is divided on this question. A.C. Bradley in Shakespearian Tragedy staunchly adheres to th e belief that Hamlet would cease to be a tragic character if he were really mad at any time in the play (30). On the other hand, W. Thomas MacCary in Hamlet A Guide to the Play maintains that the prince not only feigns insanity only if also shows signs of true insanity Hamlet feigns madness but also shows signs of true madness) after his contracts death and his mothers overhasty remarriage Ophelia actually does go mad after her fathers death at the hands of Hamlet. For both, madness is a physique of freedom a license to speak truth. Those who hear them listen carefully, expecting to pass something of substance in their speech. Is it they, the audience, who base something out of nothing, or is it the mad who make something out o... ...Felperin, Howard. Oerdoing termagant. Modern Critical Interpretations Hamlet. Ed. Harold Bloom. parvenue York Chelsea House, 1986. Rpt. of Oerdoing Termagant An Approach to Shakespearean Mimesis. The Yale Review 63, no.3 (Spring 1974). Kittre dge, George Lyman. Introduction. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. In Five Plays of Shakespeare. Ed. George Lyman Kittredge. New York Ginn and Company, 1941. MacCary, W. Thomas. Hamlet A Guide to the Play. Westport, CN Greenwood Press, 1998. Mack, Maynard. The World of Hamlet. Twentieth Century Interpretations of Hamlet. Ed. David Bevington. Englewood Cliffs, NJ Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1968. Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 1995. http//www.chemicool.com/Shakespeare/hamlet/full.html No line nos.