tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15363376.post252346755948013612..comments2024-02-21T03:20:49.338-05:00Comments on Law & Humanities Blog: Hamlet's Hung JuryDaniel J. Solovehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16371443144869608077noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15363376.post-72646987007934353652011-03-07T01:39:16.701-05:002011-03-07T01:39:16.701-05:00Hamlet should be judged by Elizabethan standards. ...Hamlet should be judged by Elizabethan standards. Two common theories of madness at that time were demonic possession and lunacy.<br /><br />Hamlet was possessed by his father's ghost. He had erased himself from his own brain and written his father's commandment there. When standing in Ophelia's grave he said, ", though I am not splenitive and rash, yet have I something in me dangerous, which let thy wiseness fear." When he regained his sanity he explained that "Hamlet from himself" had been taken away.<br /><br />Hamlet's madness was lunacy - it was caused by being like the moon. Laertes had compared him to the moon ("nature crescent"). Hamlet had compared his father to the sun ("Hyperion," the Titan sun-god). In The Mousetrap, "thirty dozen moons with borrow'd sheen" alludes to Hamlet with the "thirty" (Hamlet's age) and hints at Hamlet's tragic flaw: he was reflecting his father's warlike values instead of glowing with his own humanist values.<br /><br />For more details, please see<br />http://www.thyorisons.com/#Cause_of_Lunacy<br />and<br />http://www.thyorisons.com/#Usurp - Usurp Your Sovereignty of ReasonAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com