What was the cause of Hamlet's madness?

[Ray Eston Smith]

“The Elizabethan theory of madness as demonical possession is well known” – A History of Elizabethan Drama, by Muriel Clara Bradbook, Page 199 (accessible by Google Book Search)

Horatio (warning Hamlet against following his father’s ghost):
“What if it... deprive your SOVEREIGNTY of reason and draw you into madness?”

Hamlet:
“some vicious MOLE of nature in them....oft BREAKING DOWN THE PALES AND FORTS OF REASON”

Hamlet (to his father’s burrowing ghost):
... old MOLE! canst work i' the earth so fast? A worthy pioner!”

A “pioner” was a military engineer whose job was to dig tunnels under the walls of an enemy castle and plant gunpowder there to bring down the walls. (When I was a combat engineer in the U.S. Army in the early 1970s, we were still officially designated as “pioneers,” although I was trained to use atomic demollitions rather than gunpowder.) Thus Hamlet’s father was his mole of nature, burrowing under the pales and forts of his reason.

Hamlet invited his father’s ghost to usurp the sovereignty of his mind:
“thy commandment all alone shall live within the book and volume of my brain”

Later he was, perhaps subconsciously, aware that he had been possessed:
“though I am not splenitive and rash, yet have I HAVE SOMETHING IN ME dangerous”

After he regained his sanity:
“If Hamlet from himself be ta'en away,
And when he's not himself does wrong Laertes,
Then Hamlet does it not, Hamlet denies it.
Who does it, then? His madness: if't be so,
Hamlet is of the faction that is wrong'd;
His madness is poor Hamlet's enemy.”

Who was Hamlet’s enemy, his foe?
“Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven
Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio!
My father!--methinks I see my father.

That evening Hamlet met his dear father, who seemed to be in Purgatory (kind of a suburb of Heaven). His father usurped his sovereignty of reason, becoming his dearest foe.

I believe Shakespeare intended the demonic possession to be merely metaphorical, symbolizing a more realistic psychological conflict. Hamlet was locked in an internal struggle between the humanist values he had acquired by rational thought (influenced by his schooling at Wittenberg) and the bloody thoughts he had been taught from birth by his father. "TO BE OR NOT TO BE"..."so like the king THAT was and IS THE QUESTION of these wars" - that was Hamlet's dilemma.

- Ray Eston Smith Jr

[Gladys]

So, Ray Eston Smith, Hamlet is demon possessed, albeit metaphorically, by the ghost of his warlike father. The young prince struggles within, asking: ‘To be or not to be warlike, like my valiant father? That is the question.’

Hamlet's choice is a humanist and a coward, a brutal warrior in his father’s footsteps, or a dead avenger? Some choice.

[Ray Eston Smith]

Hamlet was never a coward. Would a coward attack a shipful of pirates, not pausing to look back for support from his shipmates? Laertes was less courageous when he confronted the King with a mob at his back. Hamlet, as soon as he realized that he might have to fight the King, invited his friends to "shake hands and part." Hamlet could easily have sharked up an army, but he chose to oppose the king "alone and naked." Fortinbras was full of conventional courage, fearlessly sending his men to their graves for a "piece of straw." Hamlet was afraid. He was afraid of dragging down his friends if they remained spokes to his nave. He was afraid of making his beloved Ophelia a "breeder of sinners." He was afraid of doing wrong. Sometimes the most heroic action is inaction.

[Gladys]

Hamlet was never a coward...Sometimes the most heroic action is inaction. I never suggested Hamlet was a coward (see also Is Hamlet a Coward? (www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=40757)). Facing unpalatable choices and with misgivings, he chooses 'to take arms against a sea of troubles'. Hamlet, himself, deems 'inaction' cowardice:


Now, whether it be
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on th' event,-
A thought which, quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom
And ever three parts coward,- I do not know
Why yet I live to say 'This thing's to do,'
Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means
To do't. Examples gross as earth exhort me.
Witness this army of such mass and charge,
Led by a delicate and tender prince,
Whose spirit, with divine ambition puff'd,
Makes mouths at the invisible event,
Exposing what is mortal and unsure
To all that fortune, death, and danger dare,
Even for an eggshell. Rightly to be great
Is not to stir without great argument,
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
When honour's at the stake. How stand I then,
That have a father kill'd, a mother stain'd...

[Ray Eston Smith]

I must disagree with you and Hamlet on one point: " Hamlet, [WHEN NOT] himself, deems 'inaction' cowardice." Most of Hamlet's soliloquys are actually debates between Hamlet himself and Hamlet the loyal son parroting his elders' "terms of honor."

Hamlet began a soliloquy as Hamlet the humanist:
"Sure, he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and god-like reason
To fust in us unused."

and ended it as the heir to a war-mongering king:
"My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!"

[Gladys]

Most of Hamlet's soliloquys are actually debates between Hamlet himself and Hamlet the loyal son parroting his elders' "terms of honor."

Hamlet began a soliloquy as Hamlet the humanist:


Sure he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and godlike reason
To fust in us unus'd. Now, whether it be
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on th' event

To me, Ray, this soliloquy suggests no such debate. Hamlet is simply saying that God-given intellect ('godlike reason') impels him to avenging action, eschewing cowardly fear of death ('Bestial oblivion') and that moralising evasion ('craven scruple') which dwells on petty detail (‘thinking too precisely’).

[Ray Eston Smith]

So you see no inconsistency between "godlike reason" and "bloody thoughts?"

[Ray Eston Smith]

"Thinking too precisely" is a warrior-king's mockery of the scholar's "godlike reason." While possessed by his father's spirit, Hamlet goes on to praise Fortinbras for sending 10,000 men to their deaths for "a straw" where "honor's" at stake. Poland was just a worthless target of opportunity after his uncle made him postpone the attack against Denmark. What kind of "honor" is that? Is that "godlike reason?"

[Gladys]

So you see no inconsistency between "godlike reason" and "bloody thoughts?"If these two ideas were swapped in Hamlet's soliloquy, meaning would alter little. Hamlet is God's avenging angel, killing a mere handful. I would refer you to the text used by Byron for "The Destruction of Sennacherib":


2 Kings 19:35____ And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the LORD went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses.

[conartist]

I think the whole demonic possession idea is just a little bit of a stretch. I mean, the first scene in which Hamlet is present after meeting with the ghost is completely dominated by his wit and intelligence. If he is being forced automatically to bloody thoughts, why does he waste so much time embarassing Polonius, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern on a purely intellectual basis, then welcoming the players and offering to prepare a short speech for their performance? If the ghost is governing Hamlet then why does he need the extra proof of Claudius's guilt from the play within the play? The ghost knows his guilt, so what need is there to "catch the conscience of the king" if the ghost's will is Hamlet's?

[Ray Eston Smith]

The demonic possession is metaphorical. Shakespeare is using it as a literary device to emphasize that Hamlet is locked in an internal struggle between two distinctly different sides of his personality. When Hamlet is being true to himself, he is "noble in reason," speaking of "godlike reason." When he is under the influence of his father's value system, he speaks of the "pale cast of thought" and says his thoughts should only be bloody (just as he promised that his father's commandment would live all alone in the book of his brain).

But if there is not at least a metaphor of demonic (or rather paternal) possession, how do you explain:

"What if it...deprive your sovereignty of reason"

"thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,"

"I am MYSELF indifferent honest;
but yet I could accuse me of such things that it
were better my mother had not borne me: I am very
proud, revengeful, ambitious," - a good description of Hamlet Sr, not Hamlet Jr.

"For, though I am not splenitive and rash,
Yet have I HAVE SOMETHING IN ME dangerous"

"If Hamlet from himself be ta'en away,
And when he's not himself does wrong Laertes,
Then Hamlet does it not"

I assert that Hamlet is locked in an internal debate between humanist values acquired by thought and education on one side and, on the other side, warlike values acquired by childhood indoctrination and by loyalty to his father. That makes a lot more sense that the usual interpretation that killing the king is "obviously" the right thing to do and that Hamlet is only delaying because he is naturally an indecisive, cowardly, suicidal wimp.

[sylphette]

I assert that Hamlet is locked in an internal debate between humanist values acquired by thought and education on one side and, on the other side, warlike values acquired by childhood indoctrination and by loyalty to his father. That makes a lot more sense that the usual interpretation that killing the king is "obviously" the right thing to do and that Hamlet is only delaying because he is naturally an indecisive, cowardly, suicidal wimp.

I most wholeheartedly agree! Well-said, and well-expressed. I've found much of your thought on Hamlet to be enlightening, incisive and articulate, if a little confusing at times. On the whole, interesting and thought-provoking :)

[MorpheusSandman]

Ray, I must admit that I can't ever seem to find the time to read these threads from to back but every time I read your OPs I'm fascinated by your observations and interpretations. Some I had noticed myself and interpreted similarly or a bit differently, but you've really enlightened me as to many of Hamlet's deepest mysteries. Is it too much to hope that you could right an all-encompassing book of your theories and observations? Maybe it's just the fact I'm still young in my Hamlet/Shakespeare journey but I haven't seen any of these ideas in print anywhere else.