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The first of these indications is the fact that the assumed madness of Hamlet is in conformity with the original story, as told in the old runic rhymes of the Norsemen.Considering moreover the exigencies of the plot and counter plots, the role of madman seems evidently forced upon him. As soon as he had recovered from the terrible and overpowering agitation of mind and feelings with which the ghostly revelation had afflicted him, he realized that the world had changed about him; that he himself had changed, and that he could no longer comport himself as before at the court of Claudius. This change, he feels he cannot fully conceal, and, therefore, welcomes the thought of hiding his real self behind the mask of a madman. But he must play his role,not indifferently, but with such perfection of truthful reality as to deceive the whole court, and above all, if possible, his arch-enemy, the astute and cunning King. With this in view, the dramatist had of necessity to portray the hero's madness with all the traits of a real affliction; for, if the court could discover Hamlet's madness to be unreal, his design and purpose would be thereby defeated. It seems evident that the Poet in the very concept of the plot and its development, intended, in the portrayal of Hamlet's antic disposition, to produce the impression of insanity, and, nevertheless, by a flashlight here and there, to expose to us the truth as known alone to himself and to Hamlet's initiated friends. Throughout the first Act, wherein the Prince is pictured in acute mental grief at the loss of his loved father and the shameful conduct of his mother, there is nothing even to suggest the notion of dementia. It is only after the appalling revelations of the ghost, which exposed the secret criminals and his own horrid situation that he resolved to wear the mask of a madman in the furtherance of his suddenly formed plan of "revenge." Hence, at once confiding his purpose to his two trusted friends and swearing them to secrecy, he begins to play the part and to impress upon the court the notion of his lunacy Had Shakespeare failed to shed this strong light upon Hamlet's purpose, he would certainly have left room for doubt; but not satisfied with this, he scatters through the drama other luminous marks, to guide our dubious path. A strong mark is found in the many soliloquies in which the Prince, giving way to the intensity of his feelings,expresses the inmost thoughts of his heart; in them were surely offered ample opportunities to expose, here and there, some trace of his supposed affliction. But it is remarkably strange that never, like the insane, does he lapse in his frequent monologues into irrelevant and incoherent speech, nor use incongruous and inane words. Another luminous index is Hamlet's intercourse with his school-fellow and sole bosom friend, the scholarly Horatio. The Prince throughout takes him into his confidence, and Horatio, therefore, surely knew his mental condition; yet in mutual converse, whether in public or in private, he always supposes his friend to be rational,and never, by any sign or word, does he manifest friendly sentiments of sorrow or of sympathy, as he naturally would, if ignorant of the feigned madness of Hamlet. Horatiois well aware that everyone assumes his friend to be demented, and, nevertheless,because true to him and to his sworn promise of secrecy, he does nothing to dispel, but rather lends himself to sustain the common delusion. Another striking indication is the Prince's treatment of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. After worming out their secret mission from the King, Hamlet partly lifts the veil for us in the words: HAMLET: But my uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived. GUILDENSTERN: In what my dear lord? HAMLET: I am but mad north-northwest; when the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw. Again, Hamlet's instruction to the players, his cautious direction to Horatio, as well as his skillful intermittent play of madness when in the same scene he addresses Horatio, Ophelia, the King, and Polonius, display, not only a sane, but also a mastermind, versatile in wit, and ready to meet cunning subterfuge with artifice at every point.If he were really mad, he could never have preserved such perfect consistency in word and action towards so many people under rapid change of circumstances; always sane in dealing with his friends, and always simulating madness in presence of those whom he mistrusted. Once he was obliged to raise his vizor in presence of his mother. It was in the formal interview, when she sought to shelter herself against his merciless moral onslaught by asserting his madness. But by unmasking himself he baffled her, and proceeded in a terrible but righteous wrath to lacerate her dormant conscience, till he awakened her to the shameful sense of her of her criminal state and to manifest contrition. An objection to Hamlet's sanity is sometimes seen in his own alleged confessions of madness. He seeks pardon, they say, from Laertes for his violence against him on the plea of madness. This objection is rather an argument to the contrary; for insane persons are never known to plead insanity in self-exculpation. The objection,moreover, is not valid, because it is based upon a misinterpretation of the word madness. The madness of which Hamlet speaks in the present instance and which hep leads in excuse, is not a fixed mental malady, but what in common parlance is a madness synonymous with a sudden outburst of anger, in which self-control is lost for the moment. Such was the madness of Hamlet, when in sudden anger he slew Polonius,and again, when at Ophelia's grave, his mighty grief was roused to wrathful expression by the unseemly and exaggerated show of Laertes. All these indications scattered through the drama are intermittent flashes,which, amid the darkness of doubt, illumine the objective truth of Hamlet's feigned madness. But there is still another and independent truth which, though already alluded to by a few eminent critics, merits here a fuller consideration. This truth grows to supreme importance when viewed in relation to Shakespeare and his dramatic art. A little reflection on the nature and principles of art will engender a repugnance to any theory of Hamlet's real madness. Art is the expression of the beautiful, and dramatic poetry is a work of art, and like every other art it has its canons and its principles. If poetry be the language of passion of enlivened imagination; if its purpose be to afford intellectual pleasure by the excitement of agreeable and elevated, and pathetic emotions; this certainly is not accomplished by holding up to view the vagaries of a mind stricken with dementia. The prime object of tragic poetry is to expose some lofty and solemn theme so graphically that its very portrayal will awaken in our moral nature a love of virtue and a detestation of vice. This verily is not effected by delineating the mad antics of some unfortunate whose disordered mind leaves him helpless to the mercy of the shifting winds of circumstances, and irresponsible to the moral laws of human life.No spectator can discover in the portrayal of the irrational actions of a madman an expression of the beautiful. It gives no intellectual pleasure, stirs no pleasing emotion,and engenders no love of virtue and hatred of vice.Nothing, it is true, may be so abhorrent to our world of existences, but may, in some form or other, be brought under the domain of art. "Men's evil passions have given tragedy to art; crime is beautified by being linked to an avenging Nemesis; ugliness is clothed with a special form of art in the grotesque." Even pain and suffering become attractive in the light of heroism which endures them in the cause of truth and justice.In consequence, the dramatist enjoys the privilege of portraying characters of every hue, of mingling the ignoble with the noble, and of picturing life in all its varied forms,with the view that the contemplation of such characters will excite pleasure or displeasure, and moral admiration or aversion in every healthy mind. This is true only when these characters are not pitiable mental wrecks, but agents free, rational, and responsible. A healthy mind can find nothing but displeasure and revulsion of feeling at the sorry sight of a fellow-being whose reason is dethroned, and who as a mere automaton concentrates in his mental malady the chief elements of the tragedy and its development of plot. A drama so constructed is intellectually and morally repugnant to human nature. Rob the hero of intelligence and consciousness of moral responsibility,and you make the work devoid of human interest and leave it wholly meaningless. Such an unfortunate should not be paraded before the public gaze in defiance of the common feelings of humanity; but in all kindness, be relegated to the charitable care of some home or refuge.