The psychology of Hamlet : read at the meeting of the Psychological Society of Great Britain, May 1, 1879 / by Mr. Serjeant Cox.

  • Cox, Edward W. (Edward William), 1809-1879.
Date:
[1878]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The psychology of Hamlet : read at the meeting of the Psychological Society of Great Britain, May 1, 1879 / by Mr. Serjeant Cox. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    The question has been often asked why, now that he was assured of his uncle’s guilt, he did not at once proceed to fulfil the promise he had made to avenge his father’s murder ? Opportunities could not have been wanting. Why did he quit Denmark, leaving his work undone ? Even after his return, so craftily brought about, his purpose remains blunted. He meets the King in the churchyard, but does nothing. Even the catastrophe is not of his seeking. He was the intended victim of the passage at arms and the blow that slew the King avenged more his own murder than that of his father. Thus to the last his character is maintained with most admirable consistency. A character meditative not active—highly intellectual and reflective, but wavering, vacillating, doubting. Certainly he is not mad, nor is there the slightest approach to mad- ness. Every act simulating madness is carefully calculated. Madness never yet talked so wisely as he talks when it is not his cue to assume the “antic disposition.” I hope, therefore, to have established something like a case against the Insanity theory so steadily maintained by so many critics, and notably by an eminent M.D. (a) who should be an authority upon such a question, seeing that he was, if he is not now, the Principal of a lunatic asylum. I trust, so far as a Psychological investigation of the play can do so, to have satisfied those who may have doubtec1, that Hamlet really was and did what he has himself described in these passages ; Here, as before, never, so help you mercy, How strange or odd soe’er I bear myself, As I, perchance, hereafter shall think meet To put an antic disposition on— Again: Ham. But my uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived. [271] (a) Dr. Buoknell.