HAMLET’S MELANCHOLY

By JOHN W. DRAPER

MORGANTOWN, W. VA.

ritics are generally agreed Thus the one pertinent author whom that Hamlet suffered from Bradley cites would seem to refute his “melancholy,” a condition case. Nevertheless the tradition of the of mind and body thought to romantic Hamlet has not died easily.® Cbe caused by a superfluity of blackMeanwhile bile. the investigation of Eliz­ Hamlet’s own statement^ and that of abethan “melancholy” has proceeded Claudius^ attest this “melancholy”; and by fits and starts. Nineteenth-century the depression and irascibility that he critics, confusing the wisdom of the sometimes shows seem to bear out their artist with the knowledge of the scholar, statement. To this physical and mental commonly ascribed to Shakespeare an condition, many critics have imputed encyclopedic mastery of the sciences, in­ his delay in avenging his father’s mur­ cluding medicine.His medical ref­ der; and, according to their theory, mel­ erences, to be sure, are widespread and ancholy becomes the fundamental mo­ numerous®; but so they are in most tive in the play. Some scholars, to be Elizabethan plays,® for the science was sure, ascribe his tardiness to objective not yet entirely freed from the common­ difficulties such as the guards about the places of folklore. Shakespeare’s ref­ King or Hamlet’s doubt of the veracity erences, moreover, are usually super­ of the Ghost®; but the larger number ficial, as compared with those of have preferred subjective causes, a Jonson, for example^’®; and more recent paralysis of the will arising from morbid scholars, therefore, have generally been melancholy, either innate, or super­ less sweeping in their claims. Elze,^’^ induced by his father’s death and his Miss O’Sullivan^2 ^^d Professor Dover mother’s hasty marriage. Today, most Wilson^® think that Shakespeare took commentators have discarded the the­ his concept of melancholy from the ory of innate melancholy; for the Prince “Treatise” of Dr. Timothy Bright; and in his normal life before his father died Shakespeare may well have read it; but, was apparently a gay young man, soldier so far as melancholy was important in and courtier and habitue of the theater; the character and action of a popular indeed it is this sudden change in him tragedy, he must have modeled his con­ that so disturbs Polonius and Ophelia ception of it on popular tradition; for and the King. Thus Bradley,^ in order otherwise his audience could not have to support the old subjective theory, followed him; and, indeed, many of the declared Hamlet’s melancholy the re­ parallels cited from Bright are medical sult of recent shock; but, except for a commonplaces. Bieber’s history, more­ reference to Burton, Bradley cites no over, of the theory of the disease since contemporary writers on melancholy; the time of Hippocrates does not sug­ and, unfortunately for Bradley’s theory, gest that procrastination and paralysis Burton elsewhere in his treatise denies of will were generally recognized as its that a sadness arising from such a spe­ symptoms or its consequences.® This cial cause is pathological melancholy.® somewhat chaotic state of scholarship. Miss Campbell meets by denying that his character. If then the Prince’s mel­ Hamlet is “a man of natural melancholy ancholy is related to his long delay, it humour”; she considers him a “study in must be, as most critics agree, the path­ grief” but, among her several quo­ ological melancholy supposed to arise tations from contemporary writers, she from a superfluity of black bile in the does not cite one that associated “grief” system and generally treated by exercise with inability to act. In short, the sub­ and diet. jective critics, to prove their case, must This melancholy was supposed to show (as they have not) that the Eliz­ show itself in various psychological re­ abethans generally thought of “melan­ actions as set forth in both medical and choly” as causing inaction; and, failing popular writers of the day; but neither that, scholars must not only abandon paralysis of the will nor even procras­ the old subjective theory, but also ex­ tination was a generally accepted symp­ plain why Shakespeare added this “mel­ tom; indeed, melancholy might lead to ancholy” to the story as he found it. certain types of feverish activity. Pro­ These difficulties have led some com­ fessor Stoll, who has especially studied mentators to follow counsels of despair, the “malcontent type,” which was sup­ and declare Hamlet’s delay either a posed to suffer from this complaint, does flaw in the original story that Shake­ not seem to find any relation between speare could not mend^® or a mere the “melancholy” that characterized it stage-convention to which his art must and a tendency to delay^®; and Dr. An­ bow.^®’ Indeed, it seems high time derson, who has worked particularly on that Elizabethan scientific and popular Elizabethan theories of psychology, writers be examined at some length to even suggests that such a condition of ascertain the contemporary theory of mind was thought to lead rather to ac­ melancholy and the psychological symp­ tion. The further researches of the toms of those that suffered from it, so present writer in the Surgeon General’s that we may understand the significance Library and in the Institute of the His­ of this motif in Shakespeare’s drama. tory of Medicine at the Johns Hopkins As appears in Bieber and the “New University, supplemented somewhat by English Dictionary,” melancholy was a the British Museum, tend to bear out very common word, and covered a va­ this view. The tradition of Hippocrates riety of concepts, some of which can did not accept inaction as an effect of hardly apply to Hamlet’s case. It was melancholy^®; nor did that of Aristotle, sometimes a mere fashionable affecta­ whom an Elizabethan treatise cites as de­ tion, like the “melancholy” of Jaques, claring that melancholy people were es­ which he himself had “compounded of pecially “desirous of revenge. ”2® Practi­ many simples”; but Hamlet’s melan­ cal medical books such as those by Bar- choly was no mere affectation. In the rough^i and Clowes,^^ though by no general sense of grief or sadness, it means neglectful of the disease, do not might arise from any misfortune such as cite procrastination as a symptom; and a a father’s death; but such passing grief more popular work, likewise, Elyot’s would not make a normal man for “Castel of Helth,” does not list it as a months unable to act. “Melancholy” consequence of the disease.^® Bright, to as a serious disease might be a concomi­ be sure, remarks that “Melancholicke tant of love-sickness; but Hamlet’s af­ persons . . . be not so apt for action”^'^; fair with Ophelia is hardly so serious but Bright’s theory of melancholy, as he as to cause an utter disintegration of himself declares, was heterodox; and. moreover, he seems in this passage to cause of melancholy. They often men­ be referring merely to the religious mel­ tion diet and want of exercise®^’ and ancholy of contemporary fanatics. Over­ Harrison adds over-eating of rich food bury also says that a melancholy man is and the decay of the teeth, for which the “all contemplation, no action”; but he age is notorious.®® Laurentius®^ and looked on such a one as “crazed” and “a Batman®® say that melancholy arises man only in shew”^®: Professor Bradley “without any apparent occasion”; but would hardly accept this as an analogue a number of authors, especially popular to Hamlet, who he insists is not in­ writers, impute the disease to the baf­ sane. In short, the Elizabethans did not fling of some natural impulse, love, am­ generally think of melancholy such as bition, or the like. The learned Barthol­ Hamlet’s as causing paralysis of the will omew Anglicus seems to approximate or even marked procrastination. this view when he describes melancholy On the contrary, a number of learned as a condition in which the vital spirits and popular works suggest that mel­ were “impaired or let [hindered] in ancholy persons were especially fit for their working”®®; and, according to Pro­ politics and even for Machiavellian in­ fessor Dover Wilson, something of this trigue. Walkington implies as much^®; sort produced Hamlet’s melancholy.®'^ Riche says that the melancholy man Professor Wilson leaves this as a some­ thinks himself “capable of managing what vague suggestion; and one may the state”^'^; and Rowlands’ “Melan­ suppose that this hindrance from which choly Knight” is quite ready to kill the Hamlet suffered may have been disap­ merry musicians who disturb him.^® If pointed love, as Polonius suggests, or Harrison be right in saying that Shake­ “thwarted ambition,” as Claudius speare’s other melancholy characters are seems to believe, though neither of Jaques, Timon and Lear,^® one would these is the dominant motive of the hesitate to declare that the dramatist as­ tragedy, nor in his soliloquies does sociated with this cast of mind paralysis Hamlet greatly stress them. of the will. Perhaps most significant is Certainly, however, the Elizabethans the statement of the illustrious French looked upon melancholy as arising from physician Laurentius, whose works some objective frustration of the will. were read throughout western Europe: In the first scene of Chapman’s “Re­ “The melancholike are accounted as venge for Honor,” it appears as the most fit to undertake matters of consequence of enforced inaction; Mar­ weightie charge and high attempt. Aris­ ston’s Lampatho likewise turns to mel­ totle in his Problemes sayth that the ancholy because his scholarly ambitions melancholike are most wittie and in­ have no outlet®®; and Nashe likens a genious. . . If then ability to trans­ “brain oppressed with melancholy” to act important business was one result a “clocke tyde doune with too heavie of the melancholy temperament, this weights. ”®2 Perhaps however, the fullest temperament could hardly have been statement of this theory of the atra­ looked upon as causing morbid inac­ bilious occurs in Earle’s “Microcosmog- tion. Why then did Shakespeare make raphie”: if fortune fail to recognize the his Hamlet melancholy? “worth” of a “high spirited man” and In the light of Elizabethan ideas on so contravene his hopes, he “turns des­ the subject, Bradley’s theory is par­ perately melancholy”; and similarly, a ticularly untenable. Elizabethans do “discontented man” is a “noble mind” not speak of sudden mental shock as a suffering from “ambition thwarted.” In short, the Elizabethans thought of mel­ fear and hatred of Claudius—a hatred ancholy as a consequence rather than that circumstances will not permit him a cause of inactivity; and, to find its re­ to express at once in a signal and satisfy­ lation to the play, one should examine ing revenge. Thus the Elizabethan the­ into the ways in which Hamlet’s will ory of melancholy not only fails to help was thwarted and an unwelcome inac­ the subjective critics of the play but tivity forced upon him. gives definite support to the objective If any further proof of the Eliza­ critics as the natural psychological re­ bethan theory of melancholy be re­ action to an enforced delay. quired, an examination may well be If any critic have the hardihood to made of Burton’s famous “Anatomy of affirm that Shakespeare employs “mel­ Melancholy,’’ the most elaborate work ancholy’’ in some sense that does not on the subject in the period. Follow­ accord with the usual Elizabethan ing Melancthon,^® Burton imputes the meanings—and that would court mis­ origin of the disease to “some grievous understanding by his audience—let such trouble, dislike, passion, or discontent.’’ a critic survey the fifty or more uses of He seems to consider the causes largely the word throughout his plays. Like the psychological; and, in his opinion, re­ popular and medical writers already ligious melancholy in particular arose cited, he refers to recreation and exer­ from a frustration of religious hope, and cise as a cure for melancholy in “A ended in an insane despair.^® After re­ Comedy of Errors,”^’ in “Love’s La­ counting the usual cures, diet, exercise bour’s Lost”^^ and even in “Hamlet” it­ and sleep, he takes up rather fully the self.^® He regularly derives the lover’s mental aspects of the disease under the melancholy from frustrated passion; headings of the passions most affected. and, when the melancholy that he de­ He declares that its causes are “most picts is not the result of love or the commonly’’ not merely physical, but mere affectation of a fashionable pose, that “fear, grief and some sudden com­ it is commonly the characteristic of one motion, or perturbation of the mind, who is struggling to achieve some baf­ begin it, in such bodies especially as are fled purpose. The Romantic Movement ill-disposed.’’^^ The “most frequent and in literature and culture has made ordinary’’ causes are “love, joy, desire, “melancholy” signify a pensive and pas­ hatred, sorrow, fear’’; and, “if they be sive sadness; to Shakespeare, as to his immoderate, they consume the spirits, contemporaries, it is rather a sort of and melancholy is especially caused by exasperation that expresses itself in as them.’’^2 Wise men use religion and much activity as circumstances will per­ philosophy to give these passions an mit. Cassius, the chief conspirator in inner curb; but, if one fails to do so and “Julius Caesar,” and Don John, the am­ so meets with outward restraint, then bitious and intriguing bastard in melancholy is almost sure to follow, “Much Ado about Nothing,” are “mel­ especially in the case of love and ambi­ ancholy.” Jaques, in his long discourse tion. Hamlet is under the influence of upon the humor attributes the soldier’s almost all of the emotions cited by Bur­ melancholy to “ambition” and declares ton; but he supplies an inner curb to his the lawyer’s “politic”; but, in all his love and perhaps to his ambition for the enumeration of the types of the disease, crown: one may therefore infer that his he never mentions weakness of will as a melancholy arises partly from sorrow at symptom or a consequence. Evans, in­ his father’s death, but increasingly from deed, in “Merry Wives,” refers to his “melancholies” as a prologue to his boast for England? Surely this use of the word, of military prowess against the Doctor. like “melancholy” elsewhere in Shake­ The Induction to “The Taming of the speare, is quite according to the Eliza­ Shrew” portrays melancholy as “the bethan sense: it is a state of mind that nurse of frenzy,” to be cured, as in belongs, not to the passive dreamer, but “Hamlet,” by plays and pastimes. Mis­ to the dangerous conspirator who is tress Ford accuses her husband of “mel­ thwarted in some desired object. ancholy,” that is, of having “some crotch­ Hamlet’s father’s death, his mother’s ets” in his head that make him raging sudden marriage, and his own defeated jealous. The Duke Orsino in “Twelfth ambition for the crown, give ample Night” certainly does not allow his mel­ cause for Hamlet’s melancholy early in ancholy to hinder the violence of his the play; but, as the tragedy proceeds, wooing; and the shrewd and calculating the problem of revenge, demanded by Olivia, who is determined to wed and the Ghost and yet for the time impossi­ yet be mistress of herself,^® is “addicted ble, augments this melancholy. The re­ to a melancholy.” In “King John,” mel­ venge is a solemn injunction placed on ancholy is described as a “surley spirit,” him by one he dearly loves; and yet something very far from the modern regicide is a frightful sin; and perhaps idea of sweet passivity. In “Richard ii,” the Ghost, as many Elizabethans would it is “sour”; and, in “King Lear,” as in affirm, is only the devil in disguise lead­ “Julius Caesar” and “Much Ado about ing him to his damnation.® This doubt Nothing,” it is clearly associated with forces on him a role of inactivity until intrigue; for the “cue” of the Machi­ he can get confirmatory proof; and this avellian Edmund is a “villanous melan­ thwarted revenge makes his melancholy choly.” grow upon him; for he is a soldier ac­ In “Hamlet,” the word “melancholy” customed to prompt action and impa­ twice occurs: first when the Prince tient of delay. The play-within-the-play voices the commonplace of Elizabethan proves the guilt of Claudius^"^; but, from demonology that his melancholy makes then on, Hamlet is closely guarded, or him especially subject to supernatural sees the King only at prayer, when re­ influence; and again, when the King de­ venge might send him to heaven rather clares to Polonius that the reason for than to the hell he merits; and the Hamlet’s strange behavior is not love, Prince’s purpose is still thwarted, and but his exasperation grows. Thus Hamlet’s something in his soul melancholy is the very clinching proof O’er which his melancholy sits on brood. of the objective interpretation of the And I do doubt the hatch and the disclose play: it is not the cause of maudlin Will be some danger. weakness that inhibits the will for If Shakespeare thought that “melan­ months; it is rather the exasperation of choly” implied paralysis of the will, why a strong man at enforcing circumstance was the King so fearful of the “danger” that lames and halts him in the deed that he packed Hamlet off post-haste that he must do. References 1. Hamlet. Ed. Furness var., II, ii, 577. 4. Bradley, A. C. Shakespearean Tragedy. 2. Ibid., Ill, i, 165. London, 1904. 3. Draper, J. W. The elder Hamlet and 5. Burton. Anatomy of Melancholy. (Ed. the Ghost. Bull. Shak. Assoc. Am., princ., 1621) Boston, 1859, pt. I: 191; 9:75 et seq., 1934. 225. A. L. Reed (Background of Gray’s Elegy, N. Y., 1924, p. 2) de­ 21. Barrough, P. Method of Phisicke. Lon­ clared Burton the best 17th century don, 1591 (ed. princ. 1583), passim. authority on the subject. 22. Clowes, W. Proved Practice of all 6. E.g. Adams, J. Q. ed. Hamlet. Boston, Young Chirgeons. London, 1591, p. 97. 1929, pp. 196 et seq. 23. Eliot, Sir T. Castel of Helth. London, Chambers, E. K. Hamlet. N. Y., 1917. 1541, sig. 3A. Wilson, J. D. Hamlet. Cambridge, 24. Bright, T. Treatise of Melancholy. Lon­ 1934, Ixi. don, 1613, pp. 243 et seq. (ed. princ., 7. Loening, R. Die Hamlet-Tragodie 1586). Shakespeares. Stuttgart, 1893. 25. Overbury, Sir T. Characters. Ed. princ., 8. See Shakespeare’s England. Oxford, London, 1614, Melancholy Man. 191?’ 1:434- 26. [Walkington, T.] Optick Glasse of 9. Bieber, G. A. Der Melancholikertypus Hvmors. London, 1639, p. 129. Shakespeares. Heidelberg, 1913, p. 72. 27. Riche, B. My Ladies Looking-glasse. 10. See Shakespeare’s England, Chap, xiv; London, 1616, p. 53. and Edgar, I. I. Shakespeare’s medi­ 28. Rowlands, S. Melancholy Knight. Lon­ cal knowledge. Ann. Med. Hist., n.s. don, 1615. 7:5*9, 1935- 29. Breton, N. Melancholike Humours. Ed. 11. Elze, K. Shakespeare’s Tragedy of Ham­ Harrison, London, 1929, p. 73. let. Halle, 1882. 30. Laurenitus, a. (Andre du Laurens). 12. O’Sullivan, M. I. Hamlet and Dr. Tim­ othy Bright. Publ. Mod. Lang. A. Discourse on the Preservation of the Am., 41:667, 1926. Sight. Tr. by Surplet. London, 1599, 13. Wilson, J. D. What Happens in Ham­ pp. 85 etc. let. N. Y., 1935, App. E. 31. E.g. Walkington,2® p. 133. 14. Campbell, L. B. Shakespeare’s Tragic Boorde, a. Dyetary. Ed. princ. 1542, Heroes. Cambridge, 1930, pp. 112; Publ. Early Eng. Text Soc., ex. ser., 144- 10:289. 15. Young, K. The Shakespeare skeptics. BRIGHT,24^pp. goo et SCq. No. Amer. Rev. (Mar.) 1922. [1. M.] Generali Practise of Medicine. Conrad, B. R. Hamlet’s delay. Publ. London, 1634, sig. B2 and 3. Mod. Lang. A. Am., 41:680, 1926. 32. Nashe, T. Terrors of Night. In: Works. Bradley, G. F. The Problems of Hamlet. Ed. by McKerrow, 1:357. London, 1928, pp. 46 et seq. 33. Breton,2® p. 61. Waldock, a. J. A. Hamlet. Cambridge, Bieber,® pp. 43-44. 193b PP- 30 34. Laurentius,®® p. 86. 16. Stoll, E. E. Mod. Phil., 3:294 et seq. 35. Batman upon Bartholome his Booke “De 1904-05. proprietatibus rerum,” London, 1583, 17. Stoll, E. E. Hamlet. Minneapolis, 1919, Lib. IV, cap. 11, 32-33. pp. 72 et seq. 36. See “Medical Lore.” Ed. by R. Steele, 18. Anderson, R. L. Elizabethan Psychology P- 31- and Shakespeare’s Plays. Iowa City, 37. Wilson, J. D. Op. cit., 1, 117. 1928, p. 78. See also: Campbell, O. J. 38. Marston. What You Will. Ed. by Bul­ Jaques. Huntington Lib. Bull. No. 8. len, Act II, ii, 120. pp. 85; 200; 251. See also Bieber, Op. cit., pp. 43-44. 19. Hippocrates. Aphorisms. London, 1735, 39. Melancthon. Tract, xiv, cap. ii, “De pp. 85; 200; 251. anima.” 20. Huarte, J. Examen de Ingenios. Tr. by R. Carew, London, 1604, pp. 84-85. If 40. Burton, R.® Pt. iii. Sec. iv, Memb. 2. melancholy persons were thought to 41. Ibid., I, ii, 5. be especially prone to revenge, this 42. Ibid., I, ii, 3. gives a special meaning to the solilo­ 43. Comedy of Errors, I, ii, 20. quy in which Hamlet expresses the 44. Love’s Labour’s Lost, I, i, 234. fear that the Ghost is working on his 45. Hamlet, II, ii, 13 et seq. etc. melancholy to “damn” him by an un­ 46. See Olivia’s household. Publ. Mod. just revenge on Claudius. Lang. A. Am., 49:797 et seq., 1934.