Hamlet (Vol. 35) | Duncan Salkeld (essay date 1993)
Duncan Salkeld (essay date 1993)
SOURCE: "Dangerous conjectures: Madness in Shakespearean Tragedy," in Madness and Drama in the Age of Shakespeare, 1993, pp. 80-115.
[In the excerpt below, Salkeld describes the political dimension of madness in Hamlet, as indicative of the power of subversion.]
Madness seems to belong in English Renaissance tragedy. It lends a distinctive pathos of inexorable self-destruction to plays which might otherwise be merely violent. But madness in the age of Shakespeare was not merely a playwright's Senecan device. It was put to more sophisticated uses. In the first place, its personal and moral implications were enormous. Madness signified a terrible loss since it rendered the body useless. The punishment of the soul in hell would be more comprehensible since it would reflect the unerring judgement of God. Men and women must accept their fate. Madness, however, belongs to the present world where its...
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