Antonia Hopkins

Mrs. Hansen

Honors English 11

24 December 2012

Article 1: Ophelia's Nursery Rhymes

From The Riddles of Hamlet by Simon Augustine Blackmore. Boston, Stratford & Co.

When Ophelia is conducted before the Queen, she seems at first not to recognize her, and gazing about in vacant stare, exclaims, "Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark." The presence of her lover's mother anchors her wandering mind, and, all heedless of Gertrude's words, she begins to sing of him in snatches of old ballads. They come flowing in music from the silent halls of memory, where they had entered when perhaps her old nurse sang her to sleep in days of childhood. The first is the story of a maiden who inquires of a traveller concerning her lost lover. He may be known by "cockle hat, and staff, and sandal shoon." These were the honored insignia of religious pilgrims, who, in the fulfilment of holy vows or from devotion, journeyed to sacred shrines across the seas and often to the Holy Land.

In those ages of Faith they not only afforded safety to the pious stranger in his wanderings through foreign regions, but even won for him the respect and honor due to a sacred personage. Hence, as a consequence of the common sacredness of the pilgrim's habit, lovers in their adventures sometimes resorted to its guise. The ballad was probably suggested by Hamlet's departure to a foreign clime. In Ophelia's mind all is disorder; ideas and phantasms mingle in confusion without sequence and distinctness. Afflicted over the dual loss of her father and her lover, her stricken mind cannot perceive their objective difference, and with the death of the one she also mourns the death of the other.

Her reference to the legend of the baker's daughter discloses how the love of Hamlet and her filial love, had subsisted in her mind in conjunction with the cautions and fears which Polonius and Laertes had so indelicately avowed concerning the danger to her virtue. Though it is not certain that she had in her sanity seriously suspected the motives of her lover, yet the disagreeable aspersions of his honor were the burden of her thoughts; and now she reveals what a deep impression they had made upon her.

The legend had been often used in her early childhood to enkindle kind feelings for the poor and unfortunate. Such impressions, after others of later years have faded, remain still fresh in the memory of the insane, as well as of those in second childhood. The story, which is current to-day among the nursery tales of Gloucestershire, relates that the Savior in disguise entered a baker's shop, asking for some bread; and, when the baker charitably put a large piece of dough into the oven to bake for Him, his daughter rebuked him, and for her unkindness was changed into an owl. The idea of this sudden transformation prompts Ophelia to exclaim: "Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be." It no doubt suggested the thought of her own unkindness to Hamlet; for her equally heartless conduct had, she believed, made him insane. But as her heartlessness was due to obedience, her father's suspicions of her lover's motives now recall to her memory another ballad which recounts the somewhat analogous case of a man who with false vows had betrayed a too trusting maiden. The song she had heard in childhood when she did not understand its meaning. The stanza she sings to her Valentine she would rather have died than sing when he lay at her feet in the Play; and she would not now sing it, were she not crazed by love.

The character of some of those ballads, thinks Hudson, is surprisingly touching. They tell us, as nothing else could do, that Ophelia is utterly unconscious of what she is saying. Their immodesty is not inconsistent with her purity, as all can testify who have had experience with insane patients.1 The ballad she sings contains an allusion to an old custom according to which the first maiden seen by a man on February the fourteenth was considered his Valentine or true love for that year. Scott made it the basis of his plot in The Fair Maid of Perth.

From the thought of the wrong done by the false lover of the ballad, Ophelia comes to think of the evil done by her own lover in the slaying of her father, and in sorrow exclaims: "I cannot choose but weep, to think they should lay him in the cold ground." Her affliction recalls to mind the advice she had heard in younger years: "We must be patient" in suffering. "Let us hope all will be well." The memory of her father gives rise to the associated idea of Laertes, and she says: "my brother will know of it," and avenge it, "and so I thank you for your good counsel."

These words, no doubt refer to his last farewell, when, before departing for Paris, he had cautioned her to have no further relations with the Prince. Then that counsel was most disagreeable, but now that Hamlet has slain her father, it seems wise and good. With a deep bow and a "good night sweet ladies," Ophelia quietly departs, leaving all lost in pity and bewilderment. The King alone breaks the solemn silence by commanding the friend of her lover to follow after and to keep her from harm.

Analysis of Article 1

This article about Ophelia’s madness was rather difficult to understand. Mr. Blackmore tends to assume that his readers will have read the section of Hamlet where Ophelia is “speaking” to the court and giving away her innermost thoughts exactly the same way he did. Thus, he didn’t explain himself very well as far as what lead him to believe some things like when he mentions that the songs she presents her thoughts in probably had something to do with her childhood for example. It seems as though this article was intended to be read by pupils or collogues after having had a large group discussion regarding this section of the text.

Mr. Blackmore does however do a very good job of explaining the significance of a few things she says in her broken soliloquy. The best example of this is found in the explanation of a moral story Ophelia refers to about a Baker’s daughter. A modern-day reader would have to have a fairly well founded knowledge of the society of the late 1500’s to have known what the significance of “The Baker’s Daughter” was referring to.

Something else I found very different about this article was that the writer analyzed the madness of Ophelia from the point of view of a psychiatric physician. He often refers to bit of her madness as symptoms of a condition; “Such impressions, after others of later years have faded, remain still fresh in the memory of the insane”. Taking the bad with the good and different, over-all this article is relatively insightful in seeing into the mind of such a convoluted young women like the character of Ophelia.

Article 2: Hamlet's Antic Disposition

From Hamlet, an ideal prince, and other essays in Shakespearean interpretation: Hamlet; Merchant of Venice; Othello; King Lear by Alexander W. Crawford. Boston R.G. Badger, 1916.

There is much evidence in the play that Hamlet deliberately feigned fits of madness in order to confuse and disconcert the king and his attendants. His avowed intention to act "strange or odd" and to "put an antic disposition on" 1 (I. v. 170, 172) is not the only indication. The latter phrase, which is of doubtful interpretation, should be taken in its context and in connection with his other remarks that bear on the same question. To his old friend, Guildenstern, he intimates that "his uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived," and that he is only "mad north-north-west." (II. ii. 360.) But the intimation seems to mean nothing to the dull ears of his old school-fellow. His only comment is given later when he advises that Hamlet's is "a crafty madness." (III. i. 8.)

When completing with Horatio the arrangements for the play, and just before the entrance of the court party, Hamlet says, "I must be idle." (III. ii. 85.) This evidently is a declaration of his intention to be "foolish," as Schmidt has explained the word. 2 Then to his mother in the Closet Scene, he distinctly refers to the belief held by some about the court that he is mad, and assures her that he is intentionally acting the part of madness in order to attain his object:

"I essentially am not in madness, But mad in craft." (III. iv. 187-8.) This pretense of madness Shakespeare borrowed from the earlier versions of the story. The fact that he has made it appear like real madness to many critics today only goes to show the wideness of his knowledge and the greatness of his dramatic skill.

In the play the only persons who regard Hamlet as really mad are the king and his henchmen, and even these are troubled with many doubts. Polonius is the first to declare him mad, and he thinks it is because Ophelia has repelled his love. He therefore reports to the king that "Your noble son is mad" (II. ii. 92), and records the various stages leading to his so-called madness (II. ii. 145-150). No sooner, however, has he reached this conviction than Hamlet's clever toying with the old gentleman leads him to admit that "Though this be madness, yet there is method in't." (II. ii.203-4.)

Though it suits the king's purpose to accept this pronouncement of Polonius, he is never quite convinced of its truth. His instructions to his henchmen, "Get from him why he puts on this confusion" (II. i. 2), imply that he understands it as pretence and not real lunacy. He soon admits that Hamlet's actions and words do not indicate madness but melancholy:

"What he spake, though it lack'd form a little.’’  Was not like madness." (III. i. 163-4.) But it serves his wicked purpose to declare him a madman, and to make this the excuse for getting rid of him by sending him to England. In this as in everything the king is insincere, and seeks not the truth but his own personal ends.

Ophelia's view that Hamlet has gone mad for love of her is of no value on the point. She is herself, rather than Hamlet, "Like sweet bells jangled out of tune, and harsh." (III. i. 158.) The poor distracted girl is no judge of lunacy, and knows little of real sanity. She cannot enter into the depth of his mind, and cannot understand that it is her own conduct that is strange and incoherent.

There need he no doubt, then, that Hamlet's madness was really feigned. He saw much to be gained by it, and to this end he did many things that the persons of the drama must construe as madness. His avowed intention was to throw them off the track. To understand the madness as real is to make of the play a mad-house tragedy that could have no meaning for the very sane Englishmen for whom Shakespeare wrote. There is dramatic value in such madness as Lear's, for the play traces the causes of his madness, and the influences that restore him. Lear's madness had its roots in his moral and spiritual defects, and the cure was his moral regeneration. But no such dramatic value can be assigned to Hamlet's madness. Shakespeare never makes of his dramas mere exhibitions of human experience, wise or otherwise, but they are all studies in the spiritual life of man. His dramas are always elaborate attempts to get a meaning out of life, not attempts to show either its mystery, or its inconsequence, or its madness. If Hamlet were thought of as truly mad, then his entrances and his exits could convey no meaning to sane persons, except the lesson to avoid insanity. But it needs no drama to teach that.

Analysis of Article 2

Alexander Crawford’s essay is about many the examples Shakespeare provides in the text to very clearly point out to the audience that Hamlet’s madness is feigned.  He points out 3 types of things about the play that show this. Conversations he has with the other characters he has confidence in, such as when during the closet scene he directly tells his mother "I essentially am not in madness, But mad in craft." is one of the most obviously he tries to explain it to anyone other than Horatio, but it falls on deafened ears.

Hamlet also leaves clues in his demeanor that suggest “the method in’t”. In the Article, Crawford discusses this through the vantage point of the characters that figure this out. He quotes the King saying "What he spake, though it lack'd form a little, Was not like madness." for example. In the last paragraph, he consults other works of Shakespeare and how atypical it would have been had Hamlet actually been insane. Mr. Crawford says “To understand the madness as real is to make of the play a mad-house tragedy that could have no meaning for the very sane Englishmen for whom Shakespeare wrote.”  He speaks how, in other works Shakespeare wrote during that time, the true madness the character portrayed served a purpose to the play, such as in King Lear to portray his “moral and spiritual defects”. He says “Shakespeare never makes of his dramas mere exhibitions of human experience, wise or otherwise, but they are all studies in the spiritual life of man.”

Article 3: Hamlet's Melancholy: The Transformation of the Prince

From Hamlet, an ideal prince, and other essays in Shakesperean interpretation: Hamlet; Merchant of Venice; Othello; King Lear by Alexander W. Crawford. Boston R.G. Badger, 1916.

From the opening of the play Hamlet has been marked as a melancholy man. Apparently this had not been his previous character, for the king has spoken of it as "Hamlet's transformation." This change in him was brought about by brooding on the events that had just happened, and had been not only a mental but especially a moral reaction.

Hamlet is portrayed as having a very sensitive and a very moral nature. He had been greatly shocked by the things that had happened, and the suspicions he harbored constituted a direct challenge to his moral faith. If the truth was as he feared, then there was occasion to question the righteousness and justice of the world, and to wonder if life were worth living. This, apparently, was Hamlet's first encounter with great trouble, with the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, and it proved a great trial to his moral nature.

When the first of these disturbing events occurred, Hamlet was at the university, and apparently he did not arrive in Denmark until they had all come to pass. The first of these was the sudden death of his father; caused as it was given out by a serpent's sting. The circumstances were suspicious and pointed to his uncle, Claudius, but there was no certain evidence.

Then followed immediately the election of Claudius as the new king, apparently before Hamlet could reach Denmark. The great popularity of Hamlet and the great love the people bore him, were doubtless known by him, and would cause him to think his uncle had tricked him in the matter of the election.

Within two months followed his mother's marriage to his uncle Claudius, which she herself afterward spoke of as their "o'erhasty marriage." To Hamlet this seemed so improper, and followed so hard upon the funeral of his father that he sarcastically spoke of it as due to "Thrift, thrift, Horatio! the funeral baked-meats Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables." (I. ii. 180-1.) These events had all occurred before the opening of the play, for when his uncle and mother appear on the stage for the first time (I. ii.) they are already king and queen. Hamlet, then, confronts these as accomplished facts, and his mind is troubled. The suspected villainy of his father's sudden death caused him great worry. He was not much concerned about losing the crown. But he was stirred to the depths of his moral nature by what he regarded as his mother's incestuous and o'erhasty marriage.

Added to these was the further fact that under the rule of Claudius his beloved Denmark was degenerating and being given over to corruption and to pleasure. Everything seemed to him to have gone wrong. His father is dead, his mother dishonored, and his country disgraced and weakened.

Under these conditions it is little wonder that he became melancholy, and was in doubt whether or not it was worth while to live. All he was chiefly interested in had failed. The men who were left did not interest him nor the women either. He was thrown cruelly back upon himself, and obliged to weigh everything anew. His confidence in the moral government of the world was shaken, and his moral faith was shattered. Everything that was most dear to him had apparently been forsaken of heaven, and he was left to struggle on alone. Under these adverse circumstances he wishes he were dead, and exclaims against the world:

"How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable Seem to me all the uses of this world!" (I. ii. 133-4.) This, then, is Hamlet's melancholy. It is the melancholy of the philosophical mind, and is induced by the evils into the midst of which his young life is suddenly plunged. The course of the play discloses his efforts to overcome his doubts and to regain his native faith in God and in goodness and to right the wrongs about him. The greatness of his mind and character is seen in the fact that he soon recovers from the first rude shock, and holding his faith in the ultimate victory of truth and right, he concludes that "It is not, nor it cannot come to good." (I. ii. 158.) Never again does he allow himself to fall into the slough of despond, but through darkness and light he holds to his faith in right.

Analysis of Article 3

This second article by Alexander Crawford speaks to the cause of Hamlets initial “transformation” into “melancholy”. Mr. Crawford starts out by giving us a detailed explanation of the many events that happen before the play starts, but are critical to understanding the happenings throughout.   He states that because the King saw Hamlet’s sudden depression as a “transformation”, he must have been a chipper young man or at least had “sensitive moral nature” before having returned home from England to find his father killed, his crown taken from under his nose, his mother disgracefully married, his country falling to pieces, and the suspicions of villainy having caused all of it. Crawford says “Under these conditions it is little wonder that he became melancholy”. The real transformation that Hamlet goes under is his deep desire to avenge everything that has happened to cause his life to fall into such a pit. His change of heart from being someone who seems to just want things to remain at rest before the play starts, to a courageous and intelligent planner is a drastic turn around. Although it will eventually lead to his personal demise, by the end of the play we see a turning around in the direction the kingdom was headed as well as the achievements Hamlet gains for his kingdom and his reputation.

This article was defiantly the most well-written of these three because Crawford went into a lot of detail about the backstory and where exactly he was drawing his inferences from rather than making any assumptions of the reader. He is also very clear in what he is trying to construe about the text and Hamlet’s character and is well founded in these ideas.