madness Flashcards
quote to demonstrate Hamlets madness in Ambleth which is reminiscient of Hamlet
‘he rent and tore his clothes, wallowing and lying in the dust and mire, his face all filthy and black, running through the streets like a man distraught’ link to Hamlet in Ophelia’s room (2,1:75-80)
Passage in Timothy Bright’s Treatise on melancholy which Hamlet alludes to in 2,2:368-9 ‘i am but mad north-north west; when the wind is southerly, i know a hawk from a handsaw’
the air meet for melancholic folk ought to be thin, pure and subtle, open and patent to all winds: in respect of their temper, especially of the South and South East
Summary of Maynard Mack on tragedy and madness (4)
- Shakespearean tragic heroes suffer madness or are associated with it.
- Madness often seems to be a form of divine punishment, but also brings with it special insight and freedom to speak the truth.
- This resembles Shakespeares own use of art to reveal painful truths
- Art and madness both allow freedom of speech but are often dismissed as merely fiction or nonsense
what according to Mack is the hero’s second phase
‘his experience of madness’
roman proverb on madness and critic that this could be linked to
‘Those whom Jupiter wishes to destroy, he first drivers mad’
-Dr Johnson: on the how hamlets madness doesnt actually help him in anyway but merely facilities his mistreatment of Ophelia
Quote about Ophelia’s divine insight due to her madness
‘Ophelia mad, is able to make awards of flowers to the king and queen which are appropriate to frailties of which she cannot be supposed to have conscious knowledge’- Maynard Mack- what happens in Shakespearean tragedy
dr johnson on hamlets madness
‘of the feigned madness there is no adequate cause. he plays the madman most when he treats Ophelia with so much cruelty’
benefits of madness critical quote
‘hamlet can be privileged in madness to say things about the corruption of human nature’- Mack- what happens in Shakespearean tragedy (1993)
Benefit of art for freedom of speech
He could be privileged… to say things… about the corruption of the Jacobean social system (anbd by extention about all social systems) which [He] could hardly have risked apart from this liscience`
who is cassandra
a figure of Greek mythology who had the power to see into the future but was destined never to be believed
how can you relate cassandra to Hamlet/ shakespeare
Cassandra ‘makes an ideal emblem of the predicament of the Shakespearean tragic hero, caught between the absolute and the expedient. And by the same token of the predicament of the artist- Shakespeare himself who having been given the power to see truth, can only convey it through poetry- what we commonly call a fiction and dismiss
Caroline Thomas
‘hamlet’s [madness] is presented as fashionably introspective and melancholic while Ophelia becomes alienated. Her madness is eroticized, Hamlets madness is politicised’
