Essay Archive - Hamlet: Method in the Madness
Hamlet: Method in the Madness
Method in the Madness: Hamlet's Sanity Supported Through His Relation to
Ophelia and Edgar's Relation to Lear
In both Hamlet and King Lear, Shakespeare incorporates a theme of madness
with two characters: one truly mad, and one only acting mad to serve a
motive. The madness of Hamlet is frequently disputed. This paper argues
that the contrapuntal character in each play, namely Ophelia in Hamlet and
Edgar in King Lear, acts as a balancing argument to the other character's
madness or sanity. King Lear's more decisive distinction between Lear's
frailty of mind and Edgar's contrived madness works to better defi....
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