What is the cause of Hamlet's lunacy?

[Ray Eston Smith]

Polonius: "I have found the very cause of Hamlet's LUNACY."

The word "lunacy" is derived from "luna," Latin for moon, because of an old belief that insanity was caused by the moon (or, I believe, in this play's metaphor, being like the moon).

When Polonius finally states the cause of Hamlet's "lunacy," a small part of his babbling is "What majesty should be, what duty is," which unknown to Polonius, really is precisely the cause. Hamlet is mad because duty demands that he become what majesty should be - a king. Yet Hamlet by nature is a man of reason, while kings are by nature "the question of these wars." Filial duty demands that Hamlet reflect the values of his father, but that way lies madness.

Hamlet compared his father to Hyperion. Hyperion was the Greek Titon god of the sun. Laertes compared Hamlet to the moon: "nature, crescent...waxes...If she unmask her beauty to the moon." In the "Mousetrap," Hamlet is implicitly related to the moon by "And thirty dozen moons with borrow'd sheen." The "thirty" relates to Hamlet's age. "Borrow'd sheen" is a hint that Hamlet is reflecting his father's values rather than shining with his own true self - and that is indeed lunacy.

Polonius: Neither a borrower nor a lender be; .... This above all: to thine ownself be true

(There is another reflection motif in the play, which I believe is somewhat different than the metaphor I discussed above. That other reflection motif might be related to Hamlet being the "mirror of fashion" Many of the other characters seem to be partial reflections of Hamlet's character, helping us to see aspects of his character. Fortinbras, Laertes, Horatio, Ophelia, and Osric are all reflections of and reflected by Hamlet. Perhaps "hold a mirror up to nature" is part of a third reflection motif.)

- Ray

[Gladys]

Yet Hamlet by nature is a man of reason, while kings are by nature "the question of these wars." It seems to me, Ray, that you lack direct and explicit evidence to support your antithesis.

Hamlet may be both 'a man of reason', and, as his father's son, every inch a king. Why should we doubt closing Fortinbras' words?


For he was likely, had he been put on,
To have prov'd most royally

[Ray Eston Smith]

Fortinbras is not the kind of man I would look to for good judgment on anything.

Let's take this one step at a time. The first step is to prove that Hamlet's father tended to undermine Hamlet's reason. (The next step is to establish that Hamlet was reasonable and peaceful when outside his father's influence. And then that his father was unreasonably warlike. And then that many of Hamlet's speeches juxtaposed admiration for reason with contempt for reason, and coupled reason with inaction, and contempt for reason with violence. And then that the reason/unreason anti-thesis corresponds to a schism in Hamlet's personality, whether due to nature/nurture or to Hamlet's soul vs the demon trying to possess it.)

Is not the following strong evidence that Hamlet's father undermined Hamlet's reason?

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!”

(For me it's self-evident that war-mongering kings were unreasonable, but you're right to question whether Shakespeare felt that way. Most people in that time (especially the incoming king) still believed in the "divine right of kings." Executions of heretics drew enthusiastic audiences. Genocidal religious wars were popular on the Continent. I believe that Shakespeare was opposing that tide of violent intolerance. But I must find the evidence in the play. The play's the thing that can catch the conscience of a king.)

[JBI]

He fakes it so that he can scheme without looking like he is scheming. The concept of a feigned lunacy is believed to have come to Shakespeare from Kyd's Spanish Tragedy.

[Janine]

All of this highly interests me. I am huge Hamlet fan and like some of the points you are bringing out, Ray, in reference to the moon and reflections. I have watched this play a zillion times and I can still not fully believe that Hamlet is truly mad or insane. He does have his moments of rash behavior, and indecision and these lead to a form of temporary insanity/lunacy, but true madness I can't accept. I think that you are tending more towards that theory, am I correct, Ray?

I always feel the play, seen in it's entirity, is a sort of journey for Hamlet. The first half is very manic and like a roller coaster ride of emotions; then Hamlet seems to settle down after his return to Denmark; even though he firstly confronts the grave-digger, the embodiment of the idea of death. He is not nearly as rash or manic as he was in the first part of the play. He seems at this midpoint to be a man of reason and intelligence. Only his sudden outburst at the grave of Ophelia is rash, and understandable - a shock; but that does not last very long and quickly Hamlet constains himself again. It is like Hamlet has come full circle, back to himself. I don't think Hamlet ever gives over his own identity to his father/his father's memory or spirit/ghost. I think Hamlet comes back to himself and he confronts the very real possiblity and probability of his own mortaliy; when he does meet his final fate, he is ready for it; in some sense prepared; what would have been left to him at that point anyway? A father slain, a mother poisoned, his love drowning and a friend slain (I have shot my arrow over the house and wounded my brother)....only Horatio is left and he desires the last drop of the poison drink to follow Hamet beyond the grave. I think that Horatio is the most important mirror of all for Hamlet. If it were not for his presence in the play, we would accept immediately, that indeed Hamlet had seem, not a true ghost, but a mere figment of his imagination, a symptom of a diseased mind, and was indeed himself insane. Because he reasons with Horatio, we see instead that Hamlet is able to control most of his actions; up until he slays 'the old man', when his emotions run out of his own control; still he may be angry, but not truly insane; he is feigning that aspect to the others, especially his parents, in order to undermine their relationship and discover the truth. Hamlet is not insane; if he were, he would immediately have taken the word of the ghost and slain Polonius without being rational and exercising caution and reason in the matter.

I would write more, because this play and Hamlet himself truly captivate me; I will try to add something tomorrow or feel free to comment on what I have written.


He fakes it so that he can scheme without looking like he is scheming. The concept of a feigned lunacy is believed to have come to Shakespeare from Kyd's Spanish Tragedy.

That is interesting. I had not known that part of the background history. I agree with you. Hamlet is feigned lunacy in order to buy himself time, scheme or plan his revenge, and also make sure he is correct believing the ghost to be his father's true spirit.


It seems to me, Ray, that you lack direct and explicit evidence to support your antithesis.

Hamlet may be both 'a man of reason', and, as his father's son, every inch a king. Why should we doubt closing Fortinbras' words?

I agree with this assessment by Fortinbras; I see Fortinbras as embodying the the idea of the 'divine right of kings' ...Fortinbras himself mentions at the end that he has "some memory in this kingdom". It seems that Hamlet also graciously gives the crown and the kingdom to the young Prince with his blessing on his dying lips - "the election lies on Fortinbras".

Forgive me if any of my quotes are inacurate; I am not good at direct quotes...poor memory....

[Ray Eston Smith]

I can still not fully believe that Hamlet is truly mad or insane. He does have his moments of rash behavior, and indecision and these lead to a form of temporary insanity/lunacy, but true madness I can't accept. I think that you are tending more towards that theory, am I correct, Ray?
............
I don't think Hamlet ever gives over his own identity to his father/his father's memory or spirit/ghost. I think Hamlet comes back to himself
....................


Thanks for the thoughtful comments, Janine. I believe the main "action" of the play is inside Hamlet's head. Whether or not his mental turmoil is labeled "insanity" is irrelevant. What's important is that he is struggling to decide between two value systems.

The first value system is the kingly tradition that he was born to. In that tradition, killing somebody to gain a patch of ground is "valiant." That tradition is exemplified by Fortinbras, who sends twenty thousand men to their graves "for a fantasy and trick of fame...a plot whereon the numbers cannot try the cause, which is not tomb enough and continent to hide the slain." In this tradition, "to be great is not to stir without great argument, but greatly to find quarrel in a straw when honour's at the stake." But what is "honour?" The "terms of honour" are to be decided by "some elder master."

The opposing value system is the humanism that Hamlet acquired by thought and education. It's the "baser matter" that was almost erased when Hamlet promised his father that "from the table of [his] memory [he would] wipe away all trivial fond records, all saws of books, all forms, all pressures past, that youth and observation copied there; and [his father's] commandment all alone shall live within the book and volume of [his] brain." After that, Hamlet notices the hole in soul, "but wherefore I know not." He contrasts his almost-erased value system with the system he has unknowingly inherited from his father. "This goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory," (like "the dreadful summit of the cliff" from which his father "deprive[d his] sovereignty of reason"). "This majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours" (because his father's ghost has made "the night hideous.") "What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason!" But trapped in the old tradition, unable to "inoculate our our old stock" with virtue, "we are arrant knaves, all." "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." Yet, under his father's influence, he mocks and denigrates reason: "the pale cast of thought," "craven scruple," "thinking too precisely."



I always feel the play, seen in it's entirity, is a sort of journey for Hamlet. The first half is very manic and like a roller coaster ride of emotions; then Hamlet seems to settle down after his return to Denmark; even though he firstly confronts the grave-digger, the embodiment of the idea of death. He is not nearly as rash or manic as he was in the first part of the play. He seems at this midpoint to be a man of reason and intelligence. Only his sudden outburst at the grave of Ophelia is rash, and understandable - a shock; but that does not last very long and quickly Hamlet constains himself again. It is like Hamlet has come full circle, back to himself. I don't think Hamlet ever gives over his own identity to his father/his father's memory or spirit/ghost. I think Hamlet comes back to himself and he confronts the very real possiblity and probability of his own mortaliy; when he does meet his final fate, he is ready for it; in some sense prepared;

Well put, I agree with all of that.



I agree with this assessment by Fortinbras; I see Fortinbras as embodying the the idea of the 'divine right of kings' ...Fortinbras himself mentions at the end that he has "some memory in this kingdom". It seems that Hamlet also graciously gives the crown and the kingdom to the young Prince with his blessing on his dying lips - "the election lies on Fortinbras".


"The election lights on Fortinbras." Hamlet had previously complained that Claudius had "popp'd in between the election and [his] hopes." I believe that complaint has a double meaning, coming from both sides of Hamlet's divided soul. The most obvious meaning is that Claudius prevented Hamlet from becoming King after his father died. However, Hamlet had previously spoken of an "election." He told Horatio:

Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice
And could of men distinguish, her ELECTION
Hath seal'd thee for herself; for thou hast been
As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing,
A man that fortune's buffets and rewards
Hast ta'en with equal thanks: and blest are those
Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled,
That they are not a pipe for fortune's finger
To sound what stop she please. Give me that man
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart,
As I do thee..

Claudius had also thwarted that "election" by refusing to allow Hamlet to return to his scholarly life in Wittenberg.

Fortinbras, has "some rights of memory in this kingdom." That refers directly to land that Hamlet Sr acquired by killing Fortinbras Sr on the same day that Hamlet was born ("cursed spite that I was born to set it right") and the same day that a gravedigger was hired. Metaphorically, that land was the graveyard, the "question of these wars," on the verge of becoming another plot "not tomb enough and continent to hide the slain." Hamlet averted that impending war by giving the land to Fortinbras.

Hamlet's father wanted him to "remember." Hamlet wanted to forget that injunction so that he could recall himself, so he passed the memory and its associated curse on to one who was already cursed with bloodlust. Hamlet had been constrained by the "voice of Denmark" to be something he was not. In the end he freed himself from the voice of Denmark by giving his "dying voice" to Fortinbras. The rest is silence.

[Janine]

Same applies here as in the 'Polonius' thread; I am anxious to participate in this discussion; but presently, I am too busy; I hope to get back here mid-week to comment on what you have writen, Ray Easton Smith. Glad to find another person as interested in discussing the text of "Hamlet" as I am. I like some of the ideas you have presented.

[Chris Marie]

"There's a method to the madness." Maybe Hamlet is pretending madness,or maybe he feels hurt, betrayed or rejected by some of his friends or family. Just a personal opinion.

[infimprob]

As a playwright in Elizabethan England, and with a collateral such as the Globe Theatre to the Lord Chamberlain's men. Shakespeare would not have been able to reasonably produce a play too be staged in such a modernist fashion.
We cannot afford to fore-go staging in any assertion of Shakespeare's intent, he was an actor writer, participating in a business, and that business was theatre.