Study Notes on Hamlet's Melancholy (from A.C. Bradley's Shakespearean Tragedy).
Date Submitted: 09/10/2006 02:53:36
WHY DOES HAMLET DELAY?
The reason is: he's melancholic. This state of mind is quite unnatural to him and induced by special circumstances. The Schlegel-Coleridge theory states that Hamlet's ability to act has been eaten up by thought. Bradley states that Hamlet's reflectiveness played a certain part in the production of the melancholy and was only a contributory cause of his irresolution to act. Of course, melancholy once established only induced more and more thinking
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cowardice? Is it conscience? Does conscience make a coward of us all? Is it sloth? Can I be thinking too precisely on the event? Why do I delay if I have the cause, the will, the strength and means to act? These are the questions of a mind stimulated for a moment to shake off the weight of melancholy, and, because at that moment he is free from it, he cannot understand its paralyzing pressure.
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