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Dryden, in his essay "Absalom and Achitophel," claims, "Great wits are sure to madness near allied."  Is Hamlet's wit so above others intellectually that it drives him to real madness even as he feigns insanity? 

Very interesting...I have always heard that there is an extremely fine line between insanity and genius.  Perhaps it is true for Hamlet, but I don't think so.  He is very witty, and even in his feigned madness, I believe, he is also in total control.  I like to look at his actions as a very complicated chess game.  Only with the last scene in Act V does he lie down and die without much fight (considering Claudius is also dead by now) since his job is essentially finished.

I do agree that madness and 'great wits' are very close.  Those who have great wit can comprehend things and reason on levels that the masses cannot so they often appear 'mad'.  Also, some times those who are classified as insane have simply just done away with the normal protocols, rules, and structures of human or societal interaction.  Hamlet falls into this category - his mother and uncle have done away with normal societal regulations why shouldn't he?  But I don't believe he actually is insane - his actions are too logical at points and his words too pointed.

Consider Einstein.  Don't you have to be a little "mad" in order to be a visionary, to see beyond the "real" world?  That said, I don't know that Hamlet falls into this category.  The stress of grief, and of knowledge unshared, the inability to come to a decision - these are the issues that plague him and cause such fretfulness of feeling.