Alfred Lord Tennyson's Maud; A Monodrama - Madness or Maud? Essay

Several emotions engulf Shakespeare’s Hamlet throughout the play, the most famous being Hamlet’s own emotional state. His madness, triggered by his incestuous uncle, has led several scholars to explore the psychological causes of his madness. This research into Hamlet’s madness will explore his madness in comparison to other characters, the psychoanalytical studies behind his madness, and defining whether his madness is genuine or another play within the play.

When looking at Hamlet, one could say that William Shakespeare put the play together as a very cathartic tragedy. The emotional result of dealing with so many deaths brings on a plethora of emotions which are not usually felt in a typical play. Hamlet begins not with the normal prosperity and good fortune as do most tragedies, but with a more stifling and depressing sort of mood (Tekany 115). However, something else could be said about this play as well. The play centers on Hamlet and his existential characteristics, such as angst, isolation and his confrontations with nothingness. The exhibition of these characteristics proves Hamlet to be an existential character.

While one is reading The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare, the reader can easily see two main important themes throughout the story beginning as early as the second scene of the play. Upon the readers first initial glance of the passage one can identify how Hamlet is in very melancholy sort of mood over the different issues that is plaguing him. It is after the reader’s second reading of the passage where the reader is made aware of Hamlet’s struggles to remain sane in the insane world in which he dwells. While one reads the tragic story of Hamlet the reader can easily say that Hamlet is melancholic is his mental state but he chooses madness as way of uncovering information.

Hamlet’s sanity has made many people question him. “Hamlet certainly displays a high degree of mania and instability throughout much of the play, but his “madness” is perhaps too purposeful and pointed

Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a work of immense depth in character development, most notably the personal, moral and psychological battles

Hamlet is the prince of Denmark, whose uncle and mother betray him. Ophelia, a pure figure in the play, loves Hamlet, but he and her mind betray her. Through conflicts between their minds, and interactions with others, the madness of Ophelia and Hamlet progressed into something more than they could handle. With a lack of support given by their families, or peers, they only spiraled deeper into themselves. In the play, Hamlet, written by William Shakespeare, the author uses the characterization of Hamlet and Ophelia’s insanity to further illustrate how madness is a vehicle to truth.

Rage and Melancholy : Remarking the Similarities in Hamlet and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's

Hamlet is one of Shakespeare’s most famous plays. In it, a young, Danish prince struggles with the death of his father and the betrayal of his mother. This struggle is so profound; it shakes its main character Hamlet to the core and brings him to the brink of sanity. Shakespeare uses madness to convey important information throughout the play especially through Hamlet and his love interest, Ophelia. Hamlet does not always appear to be mad, in fact throughout the play his sanity is questioned by the reader and other characters. Whether real or faked, Hamlet and Ophelia’s madness reveal to us more about their characters, opinions and secrets than their regular discourse.

Hamlet, a play by William Shakespeare, is as much a mystery as a tale about depression, madness and sanity. Shakespeare reveals how the scourge of corruption and decay rapidly spread; and the emotional consequences that follow. Insanity, madness and depression are as intolerable as corruption and deceit; and just as intertwined. The play makes one ponder if it is possible to be sane in an insane world full of treachery, revenge, incest, and moral corruption? By examining the themes of melancholy, madness and sanity in Hamlet, Shakespeare details his character’s descent from depression to madness. Additionally, Hamlet’s psychological state can be

A journey begins with a single step, or rather, for the protagonists of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex and Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, a single truth. While these works of literature are separated by years, each similarly exhibits the archetype of journeys. However, to voyage as these characters have is not simply by knowing the contours of the road they travel, but to trace a profound transformation on an internal level. For unfortunate King Oedipus and a likewise infamous Prince Hamlet, their journeys are not just physical, but of the mind, manifesting itself in the form of mental deterioration.

In a New Historic analyzation, it is important to note Hamlet’s madness that leads him to paranoia, revenge, and murder. In Shakespeare’s Elizabethan era, madness was defined as “internalization of disobedience”. Using this definition, it can be interpreted that Shakespeare derives Hamlet’s lunacy from the plea for vengeance made by his father’s spirit. Hamlet feels blameworthy and that

“Maud: A Monodrama” is the lengthy poem that dominated the first collection published by Alfred, Lord Tennyson after he became poet laureate. In its rich and romantic symbolism, it is characteristic of the great poet 's work. Notable, also, is its critique of the hypocrisy and other social failings of Victorian Britain. “Maud” became one of the best-known poems of the period, and continued to be influential even after its style became dated.

William Shakespeare’s Hamlet is one of the world’s most renowned plays, one which has stood the test of time over the course of 400 years, finding relevance even today. A complex and sophisticated work, Hamlet is a masterful weaving of the myriad of components that make up the human experience; it delicately touches upon such topics as death, romance, vengeance, and mania, among several others. Being so intricate and involuted, Hamlet has been interpreted in countless fashions since its conception, with each reader construing it through their own subjectivity. Some of the most popular and accredited methods of analyzing the work are the Traditional Revenge Tragedy, Existentialist, Psychoanalytic, Romantic, and Act of Mourning approaches.

To begin, Hawthorne uses The Wild Rosebush to contribute to the theme of imperfection. The Wild Rosebush symbolizes that everything has good and bad traits, similar to the characteristics of a rose. The flower of the rose is good, and the thorns are bad. This connects to the theme of imperfection in the book. Hawthorne explains, “ … To symbolize some sweet moral blossom, that may be found along the track, or relieve the darkening close of a tale of human frailty and sorrow.” (Hawthorne 46). This quote implies that the book is about things that are tragic and evil, but also will learn something beautiful, and has the similar qualities of a rose. The flower is wonderful and the thorns are dreadful and agonizing. And that has the in the characteristics of imperfection and goes along the line of the imperfect people in the story. In the book, Hester committed a sin which was adultery and had the baby Pearl, she is considered a sin baby. Later in the book, Hawthorne explains, “ … Had been plucked by her mother off the bush of the wild

her eyes ... kindling a kind of active uncaring"(p. 114) toward him. Her physical beauty, "the rhythmic rise-fall of her buttocks, the tremulous up-downing of her behind"(p.151), will make him "hurt for her, for the taming of her" (p. 152), for years to come.