the_dramatisation_of_madness_in_renaissance_tragedy-libre.pdf

Ophelia, John Everett Millais (1851)

The Dramatisation of Madness in

Renaissance Tragedy

ENGL3372: Dissertation

Student ID: 200620892

Supervisor: Professor Paul Hammond

Word Count: 10,414

The Dramatisation of Madness in Renaissance Tragedy

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Contents Introduction: Defining Renaissance Madness 3 Chapter 1. Innovative Madness Onstage: The Spanish Tragedy 6 Chapter 2. Shakespearean Madness: Titus Andronicus, Hamlet, King Lear 14 Conclusion 25


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Introduction Defining Renaissance Madness

Mad call ) it, for to define true madness, what is╆t but to be nothing else but mad?

Polonius

Madness in Renaissance drama is, to some extent, a relatively conventional matter. It is

typically represented in humoral or ╅ecstatic╆ language, through melancholic or love-sick

characters, and visually in disintegrations of customary appearance used to exhibit its

metamorphosis. It takes place in a dramatic development which moves through the stages of

conflict, confusion and irrationality. In comedy, madness is resolved and the conflicts

straightened out; in tragedy, madness perpetuates the crisis of the self until death. Yet even in

its most conventional forms, madness has always a destructive vigour, of signalling the failures

of authority and reason to dictate the meaning of the Renaissance world.

Between 1576, the opening of the first public theatre in London, and 1632, the year that

Bethlehem (ospital╆s status as the administrative hub of the capital╆s madfolk was

consolidated, early moderns drew on the traditional humoral discourses of Galen to decode

and reconfigure madness. Although critics have postulated that the theories and practice of

madness were essentially unchanging until the end of the seventeenth century, the period is in

fact compellingly heterogeneous in its approach to madness, which is manifest in its varied

theatrical portrayal and development.1 Madfolk became a new focus of theorisation and

representation across a range of cultural discourses and practices, particularly stage

representations. The mad characters of the Renaissance stage were given new languages,

adapted from their historical roots. Conditions such as lovesickness and melancholy adopted

new gender associations. The practices of lunatic confinement and treatment were reinvented

in the theatre. The discourses of madness prospered because they helped to reconceptualise

the borders between natural and supernatural, body and mind, masculinity and femininity,

feigned and real madness.

In ごすさご, Robert Burton observed that ╅the tower of Babel never yeelded such confusion

of tongues, as this Chaos of melancholy doth variety of Symptomes╆.2 What he identifies here

1 In Mental Disorder in Earlier Britain, Basil Clarke claims that there was in the period ╉no integrated development, no boundary to the middle ages,╊ and no new conceptions of madness until after the scientific revolution of the latter half of the seventeenth century (207). Michael MacDonald, in Mystical Bedlam: Madness, Anxiety and Healing in Seventeenth-Century England, agrees that ╉the perception and management of mental disorders did not change fundamentally before ごすすこ╊ ゅざょ. 2 Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, 3 vol., ed. Thomas C. Faulkner, Nicolas K. Kiessling and Rhonda L. Blair, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), vol. I, p. 395.


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is that the multiformity of what it means to be mad cannot be reduced to an essence. Yet for

all its variation, the history of language for madness can at least be described, and its dramatic

vocabulary identified from a conflagration of humoral terminology and language drawn from

the literature of Greco-Roman tragedy.

Humoral language located madness in the body, assigning its causes and effects to

corporeal states. The virtue of this theory for the diagnosis of illness was its easy application as

a combination of few related elements. Melancholy is theorized as rooted in the black bile,

one of the four humours that together constituted the body along with blood, choler (yellow

bile) and phlegm which, when in balance, produce health. According to the Hippocratic canon,

The human body contains blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile. These are the

things that make up its constitution and cause its pains and health. [...] Pain

occurs when one of the substances presents either a deficiency or an excess.3

Arabic translations of Hippocrates and Galen reached the medical schools of Italy, Spain and

France, where they were translated into Latin and widely disseminated. These works soon

became known across Europe, where they filtered down into English medical doctrine via the

writings of Ricardus Anglicus and Gilbertus Anglicus in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.4

The theory of the four humours then passed into the literature of the Middle Ages where it

was further codified in English medical texts. Later, this was developed by the work of Thomas

Linacre, the founder of the College of Physicians (c. 1460-1624), who undertook to translate

the works of Galen and subsequently consolidated humoral theory into the English medical

canon.

Throughout the sixteenth century, a number of texts reproduced the humoral theory

in shortened form with additional suggestions on appropriate treatments. The most well-

known of these texts was Timothy Bright╆s Treatise of Melancholie (1586), which linked

concepts of humoral imbalance to wider philosophical theories of nature. His text, it has been

suggested, may have contributed to Shakespeare╆s depiction of the melancholy Prince of

Denmark.5 In it, Bright strives to distinguish between natural melancholy and spiritual doubt

and advocates cures for each: ╅the phisicke cure╆ for ╅strange effects╆ of melancholy ╅in our

minds and bodies╆, and ╅spirituall consolation for such as haue thereto adioyned an afflicted

3 Hippocratic Writings, ed. G. E. R. Lloyd (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1983), p. 262. 4 Basil Clarke, Mental Disorder in Earlier Britain (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1975), pp. 87-92. 5 In the Introduction to his 1957 edition of Hamlet, John Dover Wilson asserts that ╅while its phraseology and ideas seem to have influenced Hamlet at several places, the melancholy of the Prince was clearly not wholly derived from it.╆ ゅxxivょ.


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conscience╆.6 But in Bright╆s struggle to separate a boundary between the soul and the

medicalised body, physical explanations outweigh theological ones, and the melancholy

temperament becomes almost universally applicable. Nevertheless, his treatise extends the

domain of melancholy beyond the corporeal, by implicitly beginning to refigure spiritual

transgression as a curable disease.

Whilst madness received humoral bodily explanations in the Hippocratic corpus, it

was represented differently by the Classical poets. The madness in Greek tragedy took the

form of ecstatic states described in such terms as ╅frenzy╆, ╅anger╆, ╅ecstasy╆ and ╅fantasy╆. This

was complemented by similar terms from Roman tragedy, in particular that of Seneca, whose

Tenne Tragedies was published in English between 1558 and 1581. Latin authors contributed

terms such as ╅fury╆, ╅rage╆, ╅fool╆ and ╅folly╆ to the language of madness, much of which filtered

into Middle English usage during the French Renaissance.7 So the humoral and ecstatic

vocabularies combined to form a diverse discourse from which literary and dramatic

representations of madness were constructed.

6 Timothy Bright, A Treatise of Melancholie (London: Thomas Vautrollier, 1586). 7 Duncan Salkeld, Madness and drama in the age of Shakespeare (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993), p. 23.


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Chapter 1 Innovative Madness Onstage

(ieronymo╆s mad againe

T.S. Eliot, The Wasteland

The Spanish Tragedy (1592)8 initiated the hugely popular and influential genre of revenge

tragedy onto the Early Modern stage, translating and adapting Senecan tragedy for a

contemporary audience. The motif of (ieronimo╆s madness is central to characterisation, the

revenge plot, and to the play╆s staying power. So much so, that the subtitle of the frontispiece

to the ごすごじ quarto: ╅(ieronimo is mad againe╆ highlights the central role that madness

performs as a driving element of the protagonist╆s actions. Furthermore, the imitations and

parodies of Hieronimo that circulated as a result, contributed to the wider use of madness as a

recurring motif in Elizabethan tragedies.9

Carol Thomas Neely credits The Spanish Tragedy with introducing innovative

representations of madness onstage. )n this respect, Kyd╆s play takes further the exploration of

madness already present in the earlier Gammer Gurton’s Needle, first performed in Christ╆s

college, Cambridge in the 1550s.10 Whilst both plays turn madness into a central element in the

construction of characterisation and the revenge plot, the motif of ╅tragic madness╆ originated

with Hieronimo. Like many other editors of the play, Andrew Cairncross claims Kyd as ╅a

seminal force in Elizabethan drama╆ and ╅the father of the revenge play, if not of English

tragedy╆.11 The relationship between revenge tragedy and madness is symbiotic; a vengeful

purpose hones and focuses the passions, whilst madness allows its host to pursue revenge

unclouded by reason or moral judgment. In the first edition of The Spanish Tragedy (Q1, ca.

1592), this madness is only briefly represented in a couple of scenes, which combines classical

motifs with the early modern vocabulary of distraction. The fourth edition (Q4, 1602) develops

the protagonist╆s madness further in five ╅Additions╆; significant textual revisions that, by

giving greater depth to (ieronimo╆s madness, create a new play. The writer of these Additions

recognised the importance of madness as a dramatic device, and the need to develop its

representation as a means of translating Senecan tragedy for an English audience. Therefore I

8 All quotations are taken from Thomas Kyd, The Spanish Tragedy, ed. Clara Calvo and Jesus Tronch (London: Bloomsbury, 2013). 9 Calvo and Tronch, p. 14. 10 Carol Thomas Neely, Distracted Subjects: Madness and Gender in Shakespeare and Early Modern Culture (New York: Cornell University Press, 2004), p. 27. 11 Andrew S. Cairncross, ed. The First Part of Hieronimo and The Spanish Tragedy, by Thomas Kyd (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1967), p. xii.


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propose to treat the play as two separate but mutually inclusive texts, in an attempt to

demonstrate how the Additions build upon what Hallett and Hallett quite reductively term as

the play╆s ╅purer form╆.12

Calvo and Tronch, the play╆s most recent editors, suggest that the play does not closely

follow any specific Senecan tragedies as a model. Whilst there are explicit references to

multiple tragedies of the poet╆s authorship, it will become apparent that Kyd╆s )nduction, and

(ieronimo╆s penchant for rhetorical soliloquy and stichomythia, transforms Seneca╆s Thyestes

in specifiable and deeply motivated ways.13 Hill summarizes the poet╆s legacy as having ╅no

peer among classical poets in conveying the texture of evil in a hopelessly corrupt polity╆. (is

tragedies ╅enact the bursting forth of malign forces from the underworld which [...] infest and

destroy a royal house╆.14

The ascent of the ghost of Andrea accompanied by a personification allegory in the

form of Revenge represents a schema derived from the Senecan prologue; in a typical tragedy

like the Thyestes, the ghost of Tantalus is driven by a Fury to return to Earth and provoke his

descendents to mad and murderous actions. This movement upward incites a movement

downwards as the underworld ascends to destroy the present. The ghosts that return to watch

the earthly action, the corpses that litter the stage, silently demanding vengeance are all

devices of Senecan horror. We observe with repulsion an elevated figure foundering in

corruption and misdeeds, as the interior monologue of the madman battles with the reasoned

duty of the obedient courtier. So Atreus of the Thyestes is coaxed into unimaginable acts of

slaughter in the pursuit of vengeance, just as Hieronimo rationalises the destruction of others

as a means of satiating his desire for justice.

Hieronimo then becomes prey to – or a representative of – Senecan horror, as The

Spanish Tragedy provides rare insight into the nature of classical tragedy, by enacting the

eruption of infernal passions into the world of men. The Thyestes repeatedly breaks this

boundary between the two worlds, giving passion and unreason a passport into the seemingly

predictable courtly world. (ill reads a political incentive here, as ╅the nightmarish inferno╆ of

Senecan tragedy reflects the ╅doomed Neronic tyranny in which the playwright lived╆.15 By

identifying this nightmarish realm of political tragedy with contemporary Spain, Kyd has

made the energies and wider implications of Senecan tragedy accessible to an English popular

12 Charles A. Hallett and Elaine S. Hallett, The Revenger’s Madness: A Study of Revenge Tragedy Motifs (London: University of Nebraska Press, 1980), p. 310. 13 Calvo & Tronch, p. 25. 14 Eugene D. (ill, ╅Senecan and Vergilian Perspectives in: ╉The Spanish Tragedy╊╆, English Literary Renaissance, 15:2 (1985), 143-165, p. 146. 15 Hill, p. 159.


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audience. The Spanish Tragedy is a deeply self-conscious work, one of whose major concerns is

with the problematic passage from Senecan to Renaissance tragedy. Whilst Kyd╆s )nduction

introduces the Senecan emblem of passion on its obstructed path to vengeance, it also

attempts to develop the revenge genre by giving us a more compellingly political and complex

psychological play, and it is this psychological realism that is integral to constructing

(ieronimo╆s madness.

At the end of the opening scene, Revenge initiates the play╆s metatheatricality with the

couplet ╅(ere sit we down to see the mystery, | And serve for chorus in this tragedy╆ ゅ).i.ぜこ-1).

Revenge invites the ghost of Andrea to be an onlooker in the classical convention of a chorus.

But unlike the traditional chorus, which adopts a passive, descriptive attitude, the two have as

Tydeman recognises, ╅a vested interest in the outcome╆.16 The fact that Revenge provides a

predetermination of the play by invoking the term ╅tragedy╆ also reinforces the classical notion

of infernal powers influencing characters╆ futures, as the two preside over the play with a pre-

ordained but problematic form of justice. This world is one in which men display an

increasing reluctance to wait for divine justice to work, taking it upon themselves to enact it.

(ieronimo╆s passion for revenge is in a very real sense a passion for justice over his son╆s

murderers, and what drives him mad is his growing awareness that the world of the court is

essentially unjust.

In Quarto ), (ieronimo╆s distraction as Neely puts it is ╅present but rudimentary╆.17 It is

referred to by others, and displayed through strange behaviours often signalled by stage

directions, and confined to act III, scenes xi, xii, and xiii. He is first diagnosed by the second

Portuguese as ╅passing lunatic, | Or imperfection of his age doth make him dote╆ ゅ))).ii.ざさ-33).

In the following scene, Lorenzo deliberately suggests he is ╅Distract, and in a manner lunatic╆

(III.xii.89) to deflect his accusations against him in the presence of the King, whose milder

diagnosis of ╅outrage╆, ╅fury╆ and ╅melancholy╆ justifies his firing Hieronimo as Knight Marshal

(III.xii.79, 80, 99).

Each of (ieronimo╆s increasingly odd behaviours imagines his entering into the

classical underworld in the model of Seneca, which is dramatised in the frame narrative of

Andrea and Revenge. In act III, scene xi, with the identity of his son╆s murderers having been

revealed his own personal weakness is confirmed, for as Knight Marshal it is his duty to

prevent such injustices. He responds to Portuguese who come looking for Lorenzo by acting

out this inability to find the murderer: he ╅goeth in at one door and comes out at another’ (SD.

16 Two Tudor Tragedies, ed. William Tydeman (London: Harmondsworth, 1992), p. 298. 17 Neely, p. 34.


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following III.xi.8). In an increasing proclivity for associating his actions with hell, he then

provides ╅directions╆ to the underworld where he imagines Lorenzo suffering punishment:

There, in a brazen cauldron fixed by Jove

In his fell wrath upon a sulphur flame,

Yourselves shall find Lorenzo bathing him

In boiling lead and blood of innocents.

(III.xi.26-29)

By scene xii, he enters ╅with a poniard in one hand, and a rope in the other’ and considers using

the weapons that killed his son to embark on his own journey to hell, where he hopes to find a

different kind of justice. But again he is lost: ╅Turn down this path, thou shalt be with him

straight; | Or this [...] This way or that way?╆ ゅ))).xii.せ-16). When further attempts to gain the

King╆s justice are rejected at court, he entirely disregards protocol as ╅He diggeth with his

dagger,╆ seeking to ╅rip the bowels of the earth╆ ゅ))).xii.70) to find his son. His obsession with

invoking infernal powers uncontrollably spills over into the King╆s presence with ╅)╆ll go

marshal up the fiends in hell | To be avenged on you all for this╆ (III.xii.76-7). The final

outburst in Q1 occurs in act III scene xiii and evolves out of his desire to provide justice to his

double Bazulto. When he realises he cannot, he frantically acts out revenge by ╅shivering the

limbs╆ of the petitions with his teeth as he would ╅rent and tear╆ the murderers ゅ))).xii.ご22-3).

After this, the distracted behaviours cease, but isolated as they are, they lay the foundation for

representing tragic madness onstage. They are diagnosed by witnesses in the language of

classical and humoral discourse; they enhance the theatrical power of (ieronimo╆s emotions

and to a large extent elicit audience sympathy.

It is in the revised text of Q4 however that the psychological development of

Hieronimo is given most depth. Whereas in quarto I, his condition is defined by others, and

termed ╅mad╆ only on one occasion when he mimics Lorenzo with ╅╆God amend that mad

(ieronimo╆╆ ゅ)V.iv.ごさこょ; in the ごすこし text he repeatedly names his own condition with the terms

╅mad╆ or ╅madness╆, which occur ten times, making the state central.18 With his condition

named and self-acknowledged, these extended scenes of madness provide as Neely puts it ╅the

glue that transforms isolated behavioural episodes into psychologically coherent character

development╆.19 The Additions achieve this by documenting (ieronimo╆s demurral between

uncompromising denial and acceptance of (oratio╆s death and his painful adjustment from

paralysing disbelief to more expressive grieving, and hence, to planning revenge.

18 Charles Crawford, A Concordance to the Works of Thomas Kyd, In Series, Materials for the Study of Old English Drama, Vol. 15 (Louvain: A. Uystpruyst, 1906-1910), p. 247. 19 Neely, p. 36.


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The first Addition extends the scene of discovering (oratio╆s body in act II, scene v,

and depicts (ieronimo╆s retreat from his initial longing for revenge, into delusional denial of

the murder. (is jaunty assertion that (oratio is ╅so generally beloved╆ seems to assure him

that ╅he cannot be short-lived╆ ゅごst Add. 10-13), instead he attributes his apparent murder to

╅strange dreams╆, ╅great persuasions╆ and the fact that the corpse╆s ╅garments are so like╆ his

son╆s ゅ1st Add. 19, 31, 30). When his wife Isabella refutes these conjectures, Hieronimo lapses

into the reality of his loss in the Addition╆s stark monosyllabic last line ╅(ow strangely had )

lost my way to grief╆ ゅじしょ. Continuing the development of madness initiated in the first

Addition, the eleven-line fragment which replaces a two-line speech in act III, scene ii

develops his earlier denial into ╅an aggressively sardonic repudiation of Lorenzo╆ 20 by

trivializing the death as ╅a toy╆, ╅an idle thing╆ ゅさnd Add. 3, 5).

)n the third Addition, which follows the first line of act ))), scene xi, (ieronimo╆s ironic

bitterness earlier in the act develops into cynicism and a more desperate repudiation of loss.

The first half of the long monologue argues that there is nothing in a son ╅To make a father

dote, rave or run mad╆ as they are ╅A thing begot | Within a pair of minutes╆ ゅざrd Add. 10, 4-5).

Sons pout, cry, and ╅must be fed, | Be taught to go, and speak╆ and end up ╅unsquared,

unbevelled╆ ゅざrd Add. 12-13, 22). But in the second half of the speech, he reforms his own

satirical cynicism by identifying with (oratio╆s personal attributes. He was loving and

honourable: ╅my comfort and his mother╆s joy╆ ゅざこょ; ╅his great mind, | Too full of honour╆ ゅざす-7).

This acknowledged loss breeds fantasies of revenge as the now familiar reference to ╅Nemesis

and Furies╆ who ╅sometimes do meet with murderers╆ (40-42) at the end of the Addition

remembers (ieronimo╆s earlier invocations of the underworld that conclude the original scene.

The longest and most central Addition to the construction of madness is the fourth,

inserted between III.xii and III.xiii (often identified as III.xiiA), which ╅exacerbates the father╆s

conflict between fantastic denial and acceptance and dramatizes how grief and madness are

purged through identification and self-representation╆.21 The scene opens with Pedro and

Jaques having been summoned by Hieronimo to attend his fruitless search for Horatio in the

garden. Denying having ever asked them to help him, (ieronimo╆s anger and confusion is

projected onto ╅pale-faced (ecate╆, whose moonlight gives ╅consent to that is done in darkness╆

(III.xiiA.33-ざしょ. When )sabella refers directly to the garden as the place where (oratio╆s

murder occurred, (ieronimo╆s irrational scapegoating extends onto the tree that ╅grew a

gallows, and did bear our son. | It bore thy fruit and mine. O wicked, wicked plant!╆ ゅ))).xiiA.

70-71). Then Bazardo the painter enters, who replaces Bazulto (the old man who has also lost a

20 Neely, p, 37. 21 Neely, p. 37.


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son) from the first quarto. He too seeks justice for the death of a son, to which Hieronimo

suggests he seeks ╅that | That lives not in this world╆ because ╅God hath engrossed all justice in

his hands╆ ゅ))).xiiA. 82-せざ, せすょ. As (allett and (allett recognise, the play ╅never doubts the

existence of a divine order╆, rather it depicts a society in which men display ╅an increasing

reluctance to wait for divine justice to work╆.22 (ieronimo╆s advice is indicative of this: he

recognises the ultimate claim to justice that the Christian setting of the court projects, yet the

author╆s choice of the verb ╅engrossed╆ implies that he must enact an alternative form of

recompense.

First he acknowledges the painter╆s shared grief and madness with ╅(ow dost take it?

Art thou not sometimes mad? | )s there no tricks that come before thine eyes?╆ ゅ))).xiiA. 104-

105). He then reconnects with the memory of his son by lovingly describing the portrait he

wants painted of his family: )sabella standing beside him with a ╅speaking look╆ towards

(oratio; he with a ╅hand leaning upon his head╆ ゅごごず-120). Having imagined this reunification,

he can now mourn, and does so by reliving the murder via his description of its painting:

╅behold a man hanging [...] And looking upon him by the advantage of my torch, find it to be

my son (oratio╆ ゅごしず-151). This done, he can fully embrace the passionate anger he felt: ╅Make

me curse, make me rave, make me cry, make me mad╆ ゅごじし-156). These consecutive self-

portraits illustrate his movement from love to loss to mourning and passionate raving - a

catharsis which leads Hieronimo to act upon his rage by beating Bazardo, then to his decision

to take revenge which begins the ╅Vindicta mihi!’ soliloquy in act III, scene xiii. Making

Hieronimo quote from Seneca in this speech allows Kyd to refashion meaning to suit the

protagonist╆s vengeful needs. Calvo and Tronch gloss the line ╅Per scelus semper tutum est

sceleribus iter’ (III.xii.6), derived from Seneca╆s Agamemnon as ╅Crimes always find a safe way

through crimes╆.23 In the original, this sententia is spoken by Agamemnon╆s wife Clytemnestra,

as she prepares for her husband╆s murder. )t serves as a kind of prompt to action, as he calls

upon the ╅notorious Senecan code of Elizabethan stage revengers╆.24 )f Ratliff╆s interpretation is

assumed that the murderers of his son are ╅all too likely to go further and attack him just as

Clytemnestra attacked Agamemnon╆, then (ieronimo╆s revenge is given greater depth as a

matter of self-preservation.25 This is also an example of how his developing madness hones

and sharpens revenge: his obsession with justice persists to the extent that more reasonable

methods are eradicated. He acts on this new found determination immediately, by forging a

22 Hallett and Hallett, p. 132. 23 Calvo and Tronch, p. 256. 24 William Shakespeare, King Richard III, ed. James R. Siemon (London: Bloomsbury, 2009), p. 322. 25 John D. Ratliff, ╅(ieronimo explains himself╆, SP, 54 (1957), 112-118, p. 117.


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reconciliation with the murderers in III.xiv, then by organizing the climactic play within the

play in the opening scene of the final act. Thus the fourth Addition establishes the efficacy of

expressive self-representation as a means of acting out subversive ends; a facet of mad raving

that will lead to successive interpretations of madness, most importantly Shakespeare╆s

Hamlet. The final Addition extends the penultimate scene by 49 lines, and whilst it does not

clearly present Hieronimo as mad, it does give new vigour to the biting off of his tongue. He

continues in the vein of self-conscious self-representation with ╅Now to express the rupture of

my part, | First take my tongue, and afterwards my heart╆ ゅじth Add. 48-9). In his dying lines

Hieronimo poignantly summarises the ╅rupture╆ of his parts: father, husband, Knight Marshal;

as well as the rupturing of the self that madness has conceived.

Whilst traditional ideas of madness persist in The Spanish Tragedy, many facets of

future representations of madness are inaugurated, particularly in the 1602 edition. Madness is

expressed through comparisons with and invocations of the classical underworld, whilst being

portrayed as interior and self-conceived. (ieronimo╆s powerfully articulated grief and his use

of metatheatrical means to elicit justice links him with the intensity of the Senecan revenger,

but also draws on the kinds of melancholic symptoms set out by Bright╆s treatise and later

Burton╆s Anatomy. The sympathy his portrayal evokes from both character and audience,

makes ╅palatable, even desirable, his resistance to authority and his brutal revenge╆. 26

Stylistically, (ieronimo╆s distracted exchange with the painter in the fourth Addition is in

prose, which becomes the standard form for the madman╆s voice. That said, the language of

his madness has few distinctive semantic markers vis-à-vis the complexities of (amlet╆s or

Edgar╆s Poor Tom. And while he seeks divine justice and infernal vengeance, he is not

explicitly consumed by the supernatural, cursed or possessed. Equally there is no overt

reference in the original text to the feigned madness that later plays adopt.27 In this initiating

play of early modern tragedy, which revives motifs from Latin drama, we see new

representations of an heroic madness that is secular, consumes body and mind, but opens up

self-representation whilst challenging the established social order.

And so we move on to Shakespeare, by way of looking back upon the authorship of the

Additions and encompassing new critical exploration. Brian Vickers╆ research into the

language of these developmental scenes has found that they contain no traces of Jonson╆s

dramaturgy or style, which is evidenced through a comparison of concordances in the

26 Neely, p. 39. 27 Critics who claim otherwise offer no evidence for (ieronimo╆s feigning. See Bevington, who asserts that (ieronimo ╉assumes a guise of madness to throw off his enemies╊ ゅごごょ; whilst (allett and Hallett deny feigned madness (148-149).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vis-%C3%A0-vis_(carriage)


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Additions with Jonson╆s complete dramatic works. The development of new computational

linguistics techniques has enabled researchers to conduct a similar analysis of Shakespeare╆s

language, concentrating on collections of words and phrases that reoccur across the canon.

The following example, taken from (ieronimo╆s speech in which he describes fruitlessly

searching for his dead son, closely matches the words of Aaron the Moor, recalling how he

spied on the misfortunes of Titus Andronicus:

I pry through every crevice of each wall (Add. III.xiiA.17)

I pried me through the crevice of a wall (Tit. V.i.114)

This is one example of a large number of idiosyncratic collocations that points undeniably to

Shakespeare╆s authorship.28 In reading the analyses of Shakespeare╆s plays that follow, it is

worth bearing in mind in light of Vickers╆ new evidence that not only did Shakespeare initiate

madness as a theatrical motif, he remained throughout the period its most important and

skilled developer.

28 Brian Vickers, ╉Identifying Shakespeare's Additions to The Spanish Tragedy (1602): A New(er) Approach╊, in Shakespeare, 8:1 (2012), 13-43, p. 19.


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Chapter 2 Shakespearean Madness

Madness in great ones must not unwatch╆d go. Claudius

Madness in Shakespeare╆s tragedies is depicted not as a retreat into the lunatic interior of its

characters, but ╅as a means of personal and political survival╆.29 The mortality of the physical

body which upholds the madman and sustains his suffering, ensures that the madness of

tragedy is perceptible, and therefore threatening. This form of madness has yet to be relocated

from the body and the fluctuation of its humours into more refined medical terms of the

╅vapours╆ and later psychiatric categorisation. As Salkeld puts it, ╅it has still to be cleaned up,

sanitised, and so forms part of the bloody mess Renaissance tragedies hurl themselves into╆.30

Titus Andronicus (1594)31 dramatises issues of the human and political body, alongside

power, gender and violence in a Senecan representation of man╆s cruellest capabilities. From

the start, we are introduced to a gendered discourse of honour and duty, with claims both to

power and women. Assumptions of nobility, honour and primogeniture around which the

Roman state is unified are made fluid and arbitrary by conflicting claims to power. The result

is a gradually dissolving political body into which Titus is immediately thrust, then forced to

find his place within on the basis of his own decisions. For a man who defines himself by an

unwavering code of loyalty, honour, and duty to one clear authority, such disruptions to his

innate sense of being, together with the sustained violence and cruelty projected onto his

family, create the kind of psychological displacement we see portrayed in Hieronimo, Hamlet,

and Lear. Just as the body of the state is fragmented and divided, so too are the bodies of

individuals, who absorb the violence forced upon them and those they love to such an extent

that revenge becomes the driving action of the play, and madness its enabler.

When Titus Andronicus first enters with his victory procession, the darkness below the

stage figured by the Elizabethan structure of a three-tiered theatre comes into play. The

underworld is invoked in the vein of classical tragedy with ╅They open the tomb’ (SD. following

I.i.92), his first task is to give proper burial to his sons who have died for the Roman cause. As

a city Rome prided itself on a civilized social ethos, and the religious rituals at the centre of

29 Duncan Salkeld, Madness and Drama in the Age of Shakespeare (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994), p. 86. 30 Salkeld, p. 86. 31 All quotations are taken from William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus, ed. Jonathan Bate (London: Methuen, 1995).


15

the civilized city involved animal rather than human sacrifice.32 So when Lucius demands that

the ╅proudest prisoner of the Goths╆ be sacrificed to appease the ╅shadows╆ ゅ).i.ぜぜ-104)

barbarism has entered the city, and the values that delineate Roman civilization begin to

disintegrate. Titus ignores the pleas of Tamora with ╅your son is marked, and die he must╆

(I.i.128-9) and so he condemns himself by condoning, in the words of Tamora╆s oxymoron, a

╅cruel, irreligious piety╆ ゅI.i.133). His first mistake serves as the catalyst for what is to come,

which Demetrius here names a ╅sharp revenge╆ ゅI.i.140), paving the way for the violent action

and reaction structure of the play.

For Titus, the upholding of honour is paramount and above all other values. Its

relevance to our consideration of his character is outlined by the OED: ╅a fine sense of and

strict allegiance to what is due or right╆.33 )f we consider the notion that ╅what is due or right╆ is

dictated by the hierarchical structure, Titus╆ internalised ╅honour╆, whilst it may seem morally

repugnant to the audience or reader is in fact within the boundaries of his moral code. But this

moral code is dependent on the position of the authoritative figure. Thus, the sudden change

in Saturninus╆ praise disarms Titus:

)╆ll trust by leisure him that mocks me once, Thee never, nor thy traitorous haughty sons,

Confederates all thus to dishonour me.

(I.i.306-8)

Titus╆ notion of honour is now deeply confused and as a result so too is his allegiance. )n quick

succession he has been stripped of the two most important elements of any soldier╆s psyche:

what constitutes honourable actions and in whose name are they undertaken. This is the

beginning of a downward spiral into madness that is paralleled in the opening of King Lear. In

both plays, the abrupt fragmentation of the state occurs in the opening scene, and as

governance becomes a more arbitrary notion, so too do those selves responsible for its

integrity. Lear and Titus begin as figures of power, but are gradually diminished by the arrival

of a new, hungrier order.

The second act of the play moves away from the court space, where actions and words

are limited by the need to maintain a degree of civility, into the dark and unregulated forest.

This second-act journey away from the city anticipates the wild pagan space of the heath in

King Lear. The focus then shifts from issues of the body politic associated with the power

32 Richard Marienstras, ╅The forest, hunting and sacrifice in Titus Andronicus’, in New Perspectives on the Shakespearean World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 1985), 40-7, p. ? 33 OED, sense 2a.


16

struggle at court, to the human body and its limits. Titus╆ initial reaction to the form of his

mutilated daughter of ╅Give me a sword, )╆ll chop off my hands too╆ ゅ))).i.ずざょ attempts to deal

with the matter in the self-sacrificial mode of the soldier. Unfortunately this dramatically

ironic line anticipates future events, similar to Lear╆s ╅Old fond eyes, | Beweep this cause again,

)╆ll pluck ye out╆ ゅKL I.iv.293-3). Further, his speeches in this scene incorporate an extended

metaphor of water as depicting overflowing passions. (is grief ╅like Nilus it disdaineth bounds╆

(III.i.72) takes the favourite Shakespearean image of the annually-flooded river Nile as its basis.

This is developed throughout the scene as madness drowns: Titus stands ╅as one upon a rock, |

Environed with a wilderness of sea,╆ ゅ))).i.ぜし-5) waiting to be swallowed by the water.

Harkening back to his isolation in the opening scene, here his mental separation is self-

induced as he imagines a lone figure surrounded by his own overflowing passions. There are

parallels here with (eironimo╆s rhetoric of passion in The Spanish Tragedy and the lines ╅My

woes [...] | Made mountains marsh with spring-tides of my tears╆ ゅST III.vii.2-9). But after Titus

cuts off his hand, there can be no rational restraint, and the metaphor extends through his

rhetoric:

When heaven doth weep, doth not the earth o╆erflow?

If the winds rage, doth not the sea wax mad,

Threatening the welkin with his big-swollen face?

And wilt thou have a reason for this coil?

I am the sea. Hark how her sighs doth blow.

She is the weeping welkin, I the earth.

Then must my sea be moved with her sighs,

Then must my earth with her continual tears

Become a deluge overflowed and drowned...

(III.i.222-30)

What is so compelling about these lines is the way in which, even when consumed by

overflowing emotion, reason keeps language in check through the controlled rhetoric, the

balance of the lines and formal repetitions. The grief is expressed, stretched over the scene

with the reoccurring image of water. As D.J. Palmer recognises, ╅here and throughout the play,

the response to the intolerable is ritualised, in language and action, because ritual is the

ultimate means by which man seeks to order and control his precarious and unstable world╆.34

This internal coherence or logic is a means of ordering Titus╆ world of suffering. But

Shakespeare complicates and develops the conventional Senecan hero in Titus as we will see.

34 D.J. Palmer, ╅The unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable: language and action in Titus Andronicus╆, in Critical Quarterly, 14 (1972), 320-39, p. 322.


17

The moment his speech ends, a Messenger arrives with his severed hand and the heads

of the sons he thought he had saved. Marcus, ever the voice of reason, recognises that ╅Now is

a time to storm╆ ゅ))).i.さすしょ, but what does one do when twenty-one of your sons have been

killed in battle, you have killed the twenty-second under false pretence, your daughter has

been raped and mutilated, you have been told that your two remaining sons condemned to die

will be saved provided that you sever your hand as payment, only to have their heads sent

back to you? Dramatic decorum dictates that one should rage. But human nature does not

obey dramatic decorum, and what Titus says is in fact truer: ╅(a, ha, ha!╆ ゅ))).i.さすじょ. These

three short words provide us with an insight into the mind of a man whose internal logic has

been stripped of all order and reason. While the response seems a more humanistic

representation of passion than Titus╆ rhetoric, it is precisely because of this linguistic shift that

the words appear so alien, and lead us to diagnose his madness. They also signify a move

towards the register of the revenger; his next lines are focused in the pared-down style of

Hieronimo after the fourth Addition, when both madness and revenge reach a peak, with

╅which way shall ) find Revenge╆s cave?╆ ゅ)II.i.271), placing Titus in the dangerous position of

the unreasonable avenger.

The two figures together, Titus and Lavinia, display madness and physical devastation

alongside one another, absorbing the violence of forces above and beyond their control and

representing the body as the point at which all designs of revenge and destruction end.

Through the play madness is conventionally referred to as ╅fits╆, ╅frenzy╆, ╅ecstasy╆, ╅fury╆

ゅ)V.iv.ごさ, さご, さじょ, ╅lunacy╆ and ╅brainsick humours╆ ゅV.ii.ずこ-1). The language fits the classical

blueprint of Latin tragedy, yet the madness depicted is no less threatening. Lavinia chases

Lucius╆s boy in an attempt to reveal the identities of her torturers, but her actions are

interpreted as madness by those she loves. And arrows rain in Rome as Titus looses messages

to the heavens in an attempt to consolidate his grieving. Violence and writing are inextricably

linked in the play: Titus fires messages that could kill, whilst Lavinia bears the strokes of the

knife. )n these images, as Salkeld identifies, ╅we see products of a society wherein masculine

desire is in contradiction with codes of masculine virtue╆ and the ╅social opposition of these

forces tears apart both corporate and individual identities╆.35 Rome is ╅headless╆ ゅ).i.ごせすょ from

the outset; Lavinia is bereft of both hands and tongue; Titus cuts off his hand and beats the

╅hollow prison of my flesh╆ ゅ))).ii.ごこょ; and Tamora is made to eat her sons in the cannibalistic

mode of Seneca╆s Thyestes. The body either stands or lies as the object, not subject, towards

which the strategies of madness are directed, and into which the violence is absorbed.

35 Salkeld, p. 88.


18

In Hamlet (1601),36 madness takes the shape of paranoia, shifting through the court of Elsinore

in the form of suspicion and secrets. Denmark is from the start in a state of nervous confusion

as (oratio identifies after having witnessed the Ghost: ╅This bodes some strange eruption to

our state╆ ゅ).i.ずさょ. To the melancholy (amlet, ╅Denmark╆s a prison╆ in which there are ╅many

confines, wards and dungeons╆ ゅ)).ii. さしざ, さしじ-6). Even Claudius observes the madness of the

place, whose subjects are ╅the distracted multitude, who like not in their judgment but in their

eyes╆ ゅ)V.iii.4-5). Whilst there are of course questions surrounding the truth of (amlet╆s

distraction, to which we will return, the issue of madness preoccupies the play as one of its

central themes. Even before he assumes his antic disposition, Hamlet is in the grip of an

unstable depression, and our first impression of the Prince is one of a troubled young man

unable to overcome the grief of his father╆s death. While Claudius and Polonius speculate

about the cause of (amlet╆s melancholy, Gertrude╆s diagnosis of ╅(is father╆s death, and our

o╆erhasty marriage╆ ゅ)).ii.じずょ goes straight to the point. Ophelia is presented as the most

affected, and her main concern is for him: ╅O, what a noble mind is here o╆erthrown!╆ ゅ))).i.ごじさょ.

Through all of this Shakespeare portrays the maddened Hamlet not as a distanced figure

whom other characters watch, as is the case for Hieronimo, but as someone close to them for

whom they feel constant worry.

In spite of such attempts on behalf of other characters to alleviate his pain, Hamlet╆s

madness, like any other in the drama of the period, resists categorisation.37 The play itself,

apart from the critics, breeds controversy over such questions of madness, yet they remain

unanswerable as Maynard Mack has concluded: ╅Even the madness itself is riddling: How

much is real? (ow much is feigned? What does it mean? Sane or mad, (amlet╆s mind plays

restlessly about his world, turning up one riddle upon another╆.38 Such riddles are part of the

complex game that Hamlet plays, he teases the other characters and by extension the

audience, about this very question. The famous announcement of his intention to affect

madness ╅) perchance hereafter shall think meet | To put an antic disposition on╆ ゅ).v.ごずぜ-80)

has a casualness that makes it difficult to spot his disposition when it appears; and ╅) am but

mad north-north-west╆ ゅ)).ii.ざずしょ whilst it may seem to signify location, is deliberately

36 All quotations are taken from William Shakespeare, Hamlet, ed. Harold Jenkins (London: Methuen, 1982). 37 To reduce the complex worlds of Renaissance madfolk into definable categories would of course be to miss the point entirely, but there is something to be said perhaps for the wider cultural understanding of madness as an indefinable, arbitrary state of being. 38 Maynard Mack, ╅The World of (amlet╆, in Shakespeare: Modern Essays in Criticism, ed. Leonard F. Dean (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967), 242-62, p. 245.


19

unhelpful.39 Like his father, he appears ╅in questionable shape╆ ゅ).iv.しざょ, firstly as quite mad

with his ╅wild and whirling words╆ ゅ).v.ござぜょ and then quite sane, as in his initial meeting with

the Players at )).ii. Even Polonius is confused by his ╅pregnant╆ replies, yet he is the only

character to recognise that ╅Though this be madness, yet there is method in╆t╆ ゅ)).ii. 208, 205-6).

)n the confusion, as Salkeld notes, ╅even the tragic form of the play can be lost.╆40 Ophelia╆s

report of Hamlet╆s intrusion into her chambers illustrates how his rejection of society takes a

conventional form:

his doublet all unbrac╆d, No hat upon his head, his stockings foul╆d, Ungarter╆d and down-gyved to his ankle

(II.i.78-80)

But the description also remembers Malvolio╆s ╅midsummer madness╆, and serves to confirm

Polonius╆ suspicions that ╅This is the very ecstacy of love╆ ゅ)).i.102), a phrase synonymous with

madness, particularly in the classical tradition as Jenkins recognises.41 Yet for all its comedic

potential, the appearance has still a threatening aspect, which upsets the ╅affrighted╆ Ophelia

(II.i.75). He also takes a madman╆s licence to say politically hazardous things in court, noticing

╅how cheerfully my mother looks and my father died within╆s two hours╆ ゅ))).ii.ごさし-5), and

explaining to Claudius ╅how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar╆ ゅ)V.iii.ざこ-

31). He later insists on calling Claudius his mother (IV.iv.54-6), the implication of which is a

rude jest about the incestuous taboo surrounding the marriage, but by doing so he

demonstrates a widely accepted symptom of madness by demonstrating trouble in recognising

familiar faces.

The madness that Hamlet displays, or imitates, is not just conventionalised theatrical

madness but drawn from the characteristics that many Elizabethan families would have

experienced.42 He is divided, sometimes a performer, sometimes not; we may wonder if his

assumed role is an outlet for real insanity, as Leggatt suggests, a performance that ╅comes not

from without, but within╆.43 Such notions of interiority reflect the evasive nature of (amlet╆s

distraction, and later on in the second act after the inner play, Hamlet responds to the

capacity of the player to ╅force his soul╆, which leads him to interrogate his own contradiction

of seeming to be that which he is not:

39 Alexander Leggatt, ╅Madness in ╉(amlet╊, ╉King Lear╊, and Early Modern England╆, in Critical Essays on Shakespeare’s King Lear, ed. Jay L. Halio (New York: G. K. Hall & Co., 1996), 122-138, p. 130. 40 Salkeld, p. 92. 41 Jenkins, p. 235. 42 Leggatt, p. 130. 43 Leggatt, p. 130.


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O what a rogue and peasant slave am I!

Is it not monstrous that this player here,

But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,

Could force his soul so to his own conceit

(II.ii.544-551)

The player here is ╅seeming╆ to be and succeeding, while (amlet, with a real cause of grief,

believes he cannot achieve the same level of realism. In this soliloquy at the end of the second

act he is reproaching himself for his inaction, for his inability to convincingly perform

madness, yet paradoxically this speech is perhaps his most passionate, his most convincingly

human. The contradiction Hamlet sets up is that, whilst he professes his inability to ╅seem╆

mad, here convincing seeming is precisely what he is achieving. It is these contradictory forces

that produce the madness of the Prince. He struggles to resolve the interiorised dialectic

between belief and imagination, reality and performance, action and delay, and so is

entrapped in a space between contraries. )n this Foucauldian ╅space of indecision╆ that he

essentially embodies, he is ironically deprived of the power to act or decide.44

Ophelia╆s ╅dangerous conjectures╆ present a much more straightforward case, but

whilst (amlet╆s struggle between pretension and reality hinders his ultimate goal of revenge,

it is through madness that Ophelia shifts from obedient subject to a more assertive and

dangerous figure. Our impression of her is a young woman struggling within the limitations of

a non-reciprocal courtship, lectured by her brother and father about the inappropriateness of

her love and then later rejected outright by her lover. She maintains dignity even under the

strain of (amlet╆s repeated dismissals, but the final blow is bereavement at the hands of the

man she thought she loved, and she cracks. Whilst she is not as disturbingly remote as Hamlet,

her mad speech nevertheless causes political anxiety, for as Horatio cautions, ╅she may strew |

Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds╆ ゅ)V.v.ご4-15). She finds herself torn between

conflicting loyalties and unable as she is to resolve this contradiction, madness ╅becomes her

asylum╆ from the reality of her situation.45 Her songs give evidence of this escapism and

provide a lyric quality to her sorrow; they are summed up by Laertes as ╅Thought and affliction,

passion, hell itself, | She turns to favour and to prettiness╆ ゅ)V.v.ごせぜ-190). Her death provides

an ironic approach to the conventional clothing code of madness, in that whilst most madmen

destroyed their clothes in the vein of Poor Tom, Ophelia╆s clothes destroy her. For a moment

they hold her up in the water, but then

44 Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason (New York: Random House, 1965), p. 287. 45 Salkeld, p. 94.


21

her garments, heavy with their drink,

Pull╆d the poor wretch from her melodious lay

To muddy death.

(IV.vii.180-182)

Perhaps the mad instinct of divesting oneself of clothes is right, there are times when

nakedness is safer.46 But on reflection Ophelia╆s madness is more distanced, and theatrically

stylised than her unruly lover╆s, and Gertrude╆s narration of her death leaves us with a

question of legitimacy: who saw it and why did they do nothing to help? Leggatt goes as far as

to assert that it works only as an ╅artificial convention╆, but it is important to recognise that

female madness was relatively unexplored thus far in the drama of the period, and viewed as

symptomatically and characteristically separate to its masculine counterpart, setting limits on

its representation. Madness in Hamlet then, has begun to transcend the boundaries of its

classically-based understanding; it is given new depth and range both linguistically and in its

physical representation. Functioning less as the abstract, conventionalised motif that we see in

the two earlier plays, it is more aggressive, confrontational, and has a force of its own that

neither character nor audience can wholly understand.

The Bedlamite figure of Poor Tom in King Lear (1608 and 1623)47 is another example of a

performance of madness, one created by Edgar, yet in a sense one that closely resembles social

reality: a common belief held in the Renaissance mindset that Bedlam beggars were frauds

trying to evade social restrictions by feigning madness.48 But in practice there is less sense of

performance here than in (amlet╆s antic disposition. Whilst Edgar╆s asides constantly remind

us of the man behind the nakedness and the grime, Tom stands almost as a character in his

own right. As Leggatt notices, one reason behind this may be that we see very little of Edgar

before he affects his disguise, to the extent that Tom seems the primary character, and Edgar

emerges later.49 Perhaps a more plausible reason might be that the exuberance of Tom╆s

language and imagery exceeds Edgar╆s purposeful but reserved register, making the assumed

madman the more vivid character. The strength of this portrayal rests on Edgar╆s firm

commitment to the role. While (amlet╆s announcement to affect madness is in a passing

46 Leggatt, p. 131. 47 All quotations are taken from William Shakespeare, King Lear, ed. R. A. Foakes (London: Bloomsbury, 1997), which collates the 1608 Quarto and the 1623 first Folio. 48 See William Carroll, ╅╊The Base Shall Top Th╆Legitimate╊: The Bedlam Beggar and the Role of Edgar in ╉King Lear╊╆, Shakespeare Quarterly, 38 (1987), 426-441, pp. 431-2. 49 Leggatt, p, 132.


22

subordinate clause, making his intentions arbitrary, Edgar makes a determined pledge that

carries with it tough physical demands:

My face )╆ll grime with filth, Blanket my loins, elf all my hairs in knots,

And with presented nakedness outface

The winds and persecutions of the sky.

(II.iii.180-183)

From this soliloquy, Tom is a more vivid character than Edgar has previously been. He

sacrifices himself to the nakedness and the brutality of the elements in an act that places him

as a true outsider, to the extent that even the chameleon Kent, as Edgar reports, ╅Shunn╆d my

abhorr╆d society╆ ゅV.iii.さこぜょ. )n this respect Poor Tom appears as the most realistic Bedlamite

in any of the chosen plays. His speech is frequently incoherent – ╅O do, de, do, de, do, de╆

(III.iv.57) – and his babbling of devils echoes (ieronimo╆s invocation of the underworld. But

like Hamlet, Edgar realises his role not by practicing conventional theatrical madness but by

imitating the real thing.

But the very real madness of Lear is no performance to put on and off at will. His is a

descent into an inner tempest which he actively fears; just as with Hieronimo we painfully

witness a man fighting to stave off madness only to be overpowered by its chaotic potential.

The first lines tell us that Lear╆s mind is beginning to fail with age, according to Kent, he had

perceived a difference in the value of Albany and Cornwall, but Gloucester╆s reply suggests he

has either lost this perception or is unwisely ignoring it.50 The rashness of his decision to

divide his kingdom also points to a decline in reasonable thought, and his choleric

temperament is demonstrated by his irritable responses to Cordelia╆s ╅Nothing╆ ゅ).i.せぜょ. When

her steadfast refusal to meet his demands of dotage maddens Lear, he casts her off in a harsh

dismissal of their filial bonds. (is remark, ╅) loved her most, and thought to set my rest | On

her kind nursery╆ ゅ).i.ごさざ-4) at first seems more shocking than his action, but it also goes some

way to explicating his extreme behaviour, to the extent that she was both an object of sexual

desire and a substitute mother.51 As Bradley observes, Lear never intended to visit each of his

daughters in turn, he meant only to live with Cordelia as he has already intimated. The idea of

alternative monthly stays with Goneril and Regan is forced upon him at the moment Cordelia

is undutiful.52 As we have seen, the loss of a family member, be it literal or symbolic, has

50 A.C. Bradley, Shakespearean Tragedy (London: Penguin, 1991), p. 259. 51 See Kahn, on Lear╆s ╅frustrated incestuous desire for his daughter╆ ゅざぜょ, who argues that his desire for Cordelia is deflected into a deeper need for her as ╅daughter-mother╆ ゅしこょ. 52 Bradley, p. 231.


23

contributed in lesser or greater terms to the madness of each character studied thus far. Lear

is no exception, and it is the events of this opening scene that provide the opportunity for

Goneril and Regan to capitalise on Lear╆s growing infirmity.

Whilst there is some critical support for regarding him as suffering initially from ╅acute

hypochondrial melancholy developing into mania╆, the structure of the play brings Lear to his

first major climactic moment at the end of act II.53 As the two sisters join forces to whittle

away his train of knights, and by extension the symbol of power, authority and control, Lear

begins to recognise the truth of the Fool╆s warnings. (is outburst in the speech beginning ╅O,

reason not the need!╆ ゅ)).ii.しじざょ marks the beginning of a mental breakdown, and the language

reflects this by dissolving into incoherence:

I will have such revenges on you both

That all the world shall – I will do such things –

What they are yet I know not, but they shall be

The terrors of the earth!

(II.ii.468-71)

He senses he will go mad, but he appears relatively in control of his language until well into

the storm scenes. One aspect of Lear╆s interaction with the Fool is to confirm he remains in his

right mind; as long as he can participate in conversation with the Fool he believes in his own

sanity. At the end of the first act, the Fool╆s comment ╅Thou shouldst not have been old till

thou hadst been wise╆ ゅ).v.しご-さょ provokes his cry, ╅O let me not be mad, not mad, sweet

heaven!╆ ゅ).v.しざょ; at the end of act )), his perception of what lies ahead after his thoughts of

revenge on his daughters is again addressed to the Fool: ╅O fool, ) shall go mad╆ ゅ)).ii.しずじょ. )t is

as though the Fool acts as a measure of Lear╆s sanity, insofar as his signing off line ╅And )╆ll go

to bed at noon╆ ゅ))).vi.せさょ, found only in the Folio, neatly checks Lear╆s last mad utterance; as

the Fool exits, so too does Lear╆s mad language.

The most obvious symptom of Lear╆s madness is the recurring domination of a fixed

idea, and whatever is presented to him is seized on by this idea and forced to express it,54 for

example in those words which first show his mind has succumbed to insanity: ╅Didst thou give

all to thy two daughters? And art thou come to this?╆ ゅ))).iv.しせ-9). A naked beggar in the form

of Poor Tom appears, and Lear projects onto him this perpetuating idea; thus Poor Tom

essentially displaces the Fool, and becomes the centre of Lear╆s concern. Whilst Lear╆s insanity

has destroyed the coherence of his speech and narrowed his imagination, it does however

53 See Hoeniger, 330, who argues that Lear would have been seen in Renaissance ideology as afflicted almost from the beginning of the play. 54 Bradley, p. 265.


24

stimulate the power of moral perception and wider reflection. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream,

Shakespeare noted the relationship between lunatic, lover and poet, and here he presents the

near-truth that madness and genius are allied. Lear╆s growing impression of Tom is of a man

who represents truth and reality: ╅)s man no more than this? Consider him well╆ ゅ))).iv.ごこごょ, in

contrast with the seeming flatteries and corruptions of the old world of monarchy that he no

longer lives by. He regards the beggar with a kind of reverence, a ╅philosopher╆ ゅ))).iv.ごじこょ who

understands the truth of things. Madness provides him with an insight into the world of the

common man which he would not otherwise have enjoyed. And it is in this strain of thought

which unites, in his recovery, with the powers of redemption and love, and produces his

ultimate renunciation of the hate that has for so long blinded him. It may well be that this

sacrifice for love would never have been offered were it not for the knowledge that came to

Lear in his madness.


25

Conclusion

The motif of tragic madness initiated by Kyd in The Spanish Tragedy, expanded on by

Shakespeare in the Additions, and disseminated widely throughout early modern culture,

created a forceful, dynamic model that would be developed to complex and searching ends.

Titus Andronicus then rekindles this development, by lighting the path from Classical to

Renaissance tragedy, and reforming and resituating the languages and symbols of madness for

a new stage audience. Hamlet was then one of Shakespeare╆s most popular plays, which is to a

large extent due to the fact that Hamlet╆s madness, often realistic in its representation, is both

an entertaining and searching performance. Unable to maintain the conflicting roles and

duties of son, revenger, and future king, Hamlet recognises his confusion by making madness,

and no longer Claudius, his enemy: ╅What I have done [...] | I here proclaim was madness╆

(V.ii.226-8). The question of individual responsibility is raised and dropped in the same

moment, and the culpability for Ophelia╆s death is moved onto the madness of political

upheaval and social disorder. Later, Lear╆s dreams of a quiet retirement, sketched out on the

map of his divided kingdom, are shattered by a kind of femininity represented through

Goneril and Regan, which has adopted the political strategy of absolute patriarchy for its own

subversive ends. Ophelia achieves a kind of feminine power too, her death lends a poignancy

to the tragic cause, but it is at the cost of her sanity and her life. King Lear appears not to have

enjoyed the same popularity as Hamlet, perhaps its portrayal of madness was too close to

reality, too desolate in its effect. Other plays cope with madness by stylising it and distancing

from it; Lear confronts it head on.

While these plays represent madness in order to heal or purge it, its destructive power

both in terms of corporate and individual bodies is retained. The cycle of madness from grief

to melancholy to fury and hysteria serves as a kind of political catharsis in these plays.

Through the dissolution of the established order, and via the downfall of its central figures,

madness is inherent in the reformation of these imagined worlds. Though the tragedies end,

they point however bleakly to a glimmering sense of hope, led by the next generation. As the

final lines in King Lear spoken by Edgar reiterate,

we that are young

Shall never see so much, nor live so long.


26

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Where multiple editions of the same work are listed, quotations are taken from the edition marked with an asterisk.

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the_dramatisation_of_madness_in_renaissance_tragedy-libre.pdf

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dramatisation of madness

discourses of madness

renaissance madness

shakespearean madness

practice of madness

real madness

innovative madness

polonius madness