Caitlin Grant

Hon. Eng. 11A

Ms. Hansen

24 December 2012

In “Essay on Madness (Hamlet)”, Edward Starchey argues that it is impossible for anyone to be able to say whether or not Hamlet is truly insane. He says that Hamlet was pure genius. He was also greatly affected by everything that was going on in his life, such as his father’s murder and his responsibility to take revenge on Claudius. Therefore, he states that it would be perfectly reasonable for Hamlet to be displaying erratic behavior. However, it is extremely difficult to depict whether Hamlet acted this way due to pure madness or only due to the challenging situation he was in. Starchey states that certain characters provide a variety of outlooks on his “madness”. For example, Ophelia and Polonius both view him as truly insane because of his love for Ophelia. Claudius views Hamlet as “dangerously sane”. All of the characters’ opinions are based off of their personal relationship with the prince. Edward Starchey says that because of the characters conflicting and biased views of Hamlet’s mindset and the situation that Hamlet was in, it is impossible for any reader or critic to depict whether Hamlet was truly mad.

I agree with Starchey that it is not possible to know if Hamlet is mad, or if he is just faced with difficult circumstances that cause him to act erratically. Hamlet is a complex character. At times, his actions make him seem insane, but usually one can find a reason behind them that actually makes him out to be brilliant. Also, the characters’ varying views on his state of mind make it impossible to figure it out. Each character thinks differently about whether Hamlet is mad or not and his intentions behind his actions, but the reader is unable to depict which one is the correct analysis. Each make sense, but they are also biased based on what sort of relationship the character has with Hamlet. When analyzing Hamlet’s madness, Starchey failed to mention Hamlet’s twisted view of death and the fact that he saw his father’s ghost when Gertrude did not and was the only one who could talk to it. These could have added to the argument that Hamlet was, indeed, mad, but even if the information had been included, Starchey’s thesis would have still been correct. It is impossible to depict if Hamlet was actually insane or if his actions were the consequences of the situation he was in.

Essay on madness (Hamlet)

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An extract from A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare: 'Hamlet', edited by Horace Howard Furness, J. B. Lippincott Company Vol. IV, 1877, pp. 172-74.

In this essay, Strachey argues against the critical tendency to pronounce the character of Hamlet either mad or sane, contending that in Hamlet Shakespeare portrayed a profoundly skeptical character of great intelligence whose behavior is somewhat erratic due to the circumstances in which he finds himself. The following essay was originally published in Strachey's Shakespeare's Hamlet in 1848.

In all Shakespeare's varieties of characters there is none in which he has chosen to draw the man of genius so purely and adequately as in Hamlet; in Hamlet we see genius in itself, and not as it appears when its possessor is employing it in the accomplishment of some outward end; and this genius bursts forth with a sudden and prodigious expansion, into the regions of the pure intellect, as soon as its quiet course through its previous channel of the ordinary life of a brave, refined, and noble-minded prince-royal was violently stopped up by the circumstances with which we are familiar. Hamlet now shows himself in that character which is properly,—though not according to the popular appropriation of the word,—calledskeptical. Partly because he is cut off from all legitimate practical outlet for his intellectual energies, partly from the instinctive desire to turn away from the harrowing contemplation of himself and his circumstances, he puts himself into the attitude of a bystander and looker-on ... in the midst of the bustling world around him. And like other such skeptics he finds it more and more difficult to act, as his knowledge becomes more and more comprehensive and circular,—to take a part in the affairs of a world of which he seems to see the whole; and like them, too, he throws a satirical tone into his observation on men, who, however inferior to him in intellect, are always reminding him that he is dreaming while they are acting....

[We] can neither assert that Hamlet is mad, nor that his mind is perfectly healthy; much confusion and misapprehension about the character of Hamlet have arisen from thus attempting an impossible simplification of what is most complex. There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in the philosophy of the small critic who thinks he has only to rule two columns, with 'mad' at the top of one, and 'sane' at the top of the other, and then to put the name of Hamlet in one of the two. Hamlet, like all real men, and especially men such as he, has a character made up of many elements, ramifying themselves in many directions, some being healthy and some diseased, and intertwined now in harmony, now in contradiction with each other. And, accordingly, it presents different aspects to different observers, who look from opposite points of view, though each with considerable qualifications for judging rightly. We have ... seen the view taken by Ophelia, whose deep love, and woman's tact and sentiment, can best appreciate the finer and more delicate features of Hamlet's character, though she, perhaps, exaggerates the extent of the untuning of his reason, from the influence of her own fears and of her father's declaration that he had gone mad. The shrewd, clear-headed King, with his wits sharpened by anxiety, considers the question from the side of its practical bearing on his own interests, and sees that as far as these are concerned Hamlet is not mad, but most dangerously sane....

[We] must not only utterly reject the notion that Hamlet kills the Kingat last to revenge himself and not his father,—though we may allow that the treachery to himself helped to point the spur which was necessary to urge him on to instant action,—but we must also come to the conclusion which I proposed to prove by this inquiry into the whole plot and purpose of the play,—that Hamlet does not, as Coleridge ... and other great critics have asserted, 'delay action till action is of no use, and die the victim of mere circumstance and accident.' True it is that he delays action till it is of no use to himself, and has allowed his chains to hang on him till the time for enjoying liberty and life is past: and it is doubtless a part of the moral of the Play that we should recognize in this defect in Hamlet's character the origin of his tragic and untimely fate. He ought to have lived to enjoy his triumph, but surely he has triumphed, though only in death. If he had not triumphed, if he had not done his work before the night fell, but had been a mere idler and dreamer to the last, could we part from him with any feeling but that of the kind of pity which is half blame and contempt?... There is something so unpretending, and even homely (if I may apply the word to such a state of things) in the circumstances of Hamlet's death, that it does not strike us obviously that he dies for the cause to which he has been called to be the champion. Yet so it is....