Hamlet (Vol. 35) | Paul A. Jorgensen (essay date 1963-64)
Paul A. Jorgensen (essay date 1963-64)
SOURCE: "Hamlet's Therapy," in The Huntington Library Quarterly, Vol. XXVII, 1963-64, pp. 239-58.
[Below, Jorgensen undertakes a psychological study of Hamlet's malady in terms of Renaissance and Freudian interpretations of melancholy as repressed anger, misdirected toward one's self rather than expressed outwardly.]
It is the purpose of this essay to call attention to an important, though doubtless secondary, objective of Hamlet's pilgrimage (like a Spenserian knight he can have more than one). This is the regaining of the sanity which he had formerly displayed as an ideal prince. Hamlet does recover; and his recovery is a part of the drama which grips us. Only thus can we fully account for the much-discussed "regeneration" of the hero in a play whose primary image is disease. And only thus can we realize the fullest meaning of his most impassioned speeches. We must view them as Hamlet's groping his...
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