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To follow Hamlet at all, one has to be familiar with the idea that the Hamlet character must wade through the theme of madness, with a big question being whether this madness should be merely feigned, as a put-on antic, or genuine, a slipping away into true lunacy.
Yet, in my numerous readings, I never could see that theme convincingly manifested. Even in the few movie versions that I have watched, I never really saw it. Kenneth Branagh certainly appears fairly cool and collected throughout his major production, for example. Sure, one hears explicit mentions about him being “mad”, but the most that I could see from the character himself is just a little volatility of the passions, in the way of sarcasm and peevishness, with the occasional flare-up of violent anger, and there is that bout of angst in the “To be or not to be” soliloquy. But nothing that seemed to approach insanity, a true falling out of one’s mind.
However, going into the dialogue between Hamlet and Polonius, I can now see more room to play in this issue of Hamlet’s madness. Now that we understand that two months have passed since Hamlet talked with the ghost of his slain father, one can also better appreciate how time and emotional pressure could work its dark alchemy in the tormented and isolated mind.
In my previous readings, I always did wonder about Ophelia’s wild description of the put-off prince given to her father:
My lord, as I was sewing in my closet,
Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbraced;
No hat upon his head; his stockings foul'd,
Ungarter'd, and down-gyved to his ankle;
Pale as his shirt; his knees knocking each other;
And with a look so piteous in purport
As if he had been loosed out of hell
To speak of horrors,--he comes before me.
And I thought it a shame that this should happen off-stage. But now I take it that we can see this, after all, when Hamlet makes his next appearance and has this dialogue with Polonius, that we should clearly see Hamlet in this disturbed state, see it in his dress and grooming as well as in his biting attitude. This is reinforced by Claudius’s speech to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern:
Welcome, dear Rosencrantz and Guildenstern!
Moreover that we much did long to see you,
The need we have to use you did provoke
Our hasty sending. Something have you heard
Of Hamlet's transformation; so call it,
Sith nor the exterior nor the inward man
Resembles that it was.
So, in my mind’s eye, Hamlet is now a more visibly tormented character, even “mad”, though I leave the issue open as to whether it is wholly feigned or not. For now, I fancy the idea that, under the pressure, he has perhaps genuinely fallen a little below the waterline in these two months, struggling over what he should do, while feeling alienated and alone from the court, as well as from Ophelia. Hamlet was a young man who was the pride and center of Danish society, or as Ophelia will put the matter:
O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!
The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword;
The expectancy and rose of the fair state,
The glass of fashion and the mould of form,
The observed of all observers, quite, quite down!
And now Hamlet is not only down, quite down, but he finds himself pitted against society, against the court, against the King, his mother’s husband, all alone save for a ghost.
Yet, in my numerous readings, I never could see that theme convincingly manifested. Even in the few movie versions that I have watched, I never really saw it. Kenneth Branagh certainly appears fairly cool and collected throughout his major production, for example. Sure, one hears explicit mentions about him being “mad”, but the most that I could see from the character himself is just a little volatility of the passions, in the way of sarcasm and peevishness, with the occasional flare-up of violent anger, and there is that bout of angst in the “To be or not to be” soliloquy. But nothing that seemed to approach insanity, a true falling out of one’s mind.
However, going into the dialogue between Hamlet and Polonius, I can now see more room to play in this issue of Hamlet’s madness. Now that we understand that two months have passed since Hamlet talked with the ghost of his slain father, one can also better appreciate how time and emotional pressure could work its dark alchemy in the tormented and isolated mind.
In my previous readings, I always did wonder about Ophelia’s wild description of the put-off prince given to her father:
My lord, as I was sewing in my closet,
Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbraced;
No hat upon his head; his stockings foul'd,
Ungarter'd, and down-gyved to his ankle;
Pale as his shirt; his knees knocking each other;
And with a look so piteous in purport
As if he had been loosed out of hell
To speak of horrors,--he comes before me.
And I thought it a shame that this should happen off-stage. But now I take it that we can see this, after all, when Hamlet makes his next appearance and has this dialogue with Polonius, that we should clearly see Hamlet in this disturbed state, see it in his dress and grooming as well as in his biting attitude. This is reinforced by Claudius’s speech to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern:
Welcome, dear Rosencrantz and Guildenstern!
Moreover that we much did long to see you,
The need we have to use you did provoke
Our hasty sending. Something have you heard
Of Hamlet's transformation; so call it,
Sith nor the exterior nor the inward man
Resembles that it was.
So, in my mind’s eye, Hamlet is now a more visibly tormented character, even “mad”, though I leave the issue open as to whether it is wholly feigned or not. For now, I fancy the idea that, under the pressure, he has perhaps genuinely fallen a little below the waterline in these two months, struggling over what he should do, while feeling alienated and alone from the court, as well as from Ophelia. Hamlet was a young man who was the pride and center of Danish society, or as Ophelia will put the matter:
O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!
The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword;
The expectancy and rose of the fair state,
The glass of fashion and the mould of form,
The observed of all observers, quite, quite down!
And now Hamlet is not only down, quite down, but he finds himself pitted against society, against the court, against the King, his mother’s husband, all alone save for a ghost.
