Hamlet: Madness and Melancholy by Alicia LM https://padlet.com/11mcgoa04/2t8t2yxxv089 Amy & Alicia en-us 2017-09-19 11:12:49 UTC 2026-01-22 05:06:13 UTC hello@padlet.com Madness in Shakespearean Times 11mcgoa04 https://padlet.com/11mcgoa04/2t8t2yxxv089/wish/188825562
  • Insanity could be attributed to a wide variety of causes, including: physical illness (especially fever), an imbalance of ‘humours’ (which were thought to give rise to emotions such as melancholy or anger), astrological influences, a lack of faith in God (resulting in despair, difficulties in love and even demonic possession.)
  • Unsatisfied sexual desire was said to cause sickness in ‘noble virgins’ and ‘nice gentlewomen’. They could be ‘violently carried away with this torrent of inward humours’ and be subject to ‘teares, sighes, groanes, and grievous miseries’.
  • Grief could make people ‘cry out, howle & roare for very anguish of their soules, and turn them senseless and stupid’
    • ]]>     2017-09-19 11:14:54 UTC https://padlet.com/11mcgoa04/2t8t2yxxv089/wish/188825562     Features of Melancholy 11mcgoa04 https://padlet.com/11mcgoa04/2t8t2yxxv089/wish/188826441
  • adjective
    adjective: melancholy
    1. having a feeling of melancholy; sad and pensive.
    2. "she felt a little melancholy"
    3. synonyms: | sad, sorrowful, desolate, melancholic, mournful, lugubrious, gloomy, pensive;
  • Melancholy was linked with the element earth and the qualities of dryness and cold. It was also associated with autumn, and with old age. It was described as the most powerful of the humours, and was believed to be the cause of physical illnesses such as digestive problems, fits and lethargy.
  • Melancholics are said to have tormented souls which cause them to be overly emotional, generally discontent and impatient. Their impatience is said to cause "unspeakable miseries" and means that they cannot endure company or light. have ‘a canker’d soule macerated with cares and discontents, tœdiam vitæ, impatience precipitates them into vnspeakable miseries. They cannot indure companie, light, [they are] vnfit for action’ and ‘their soules [are] tormented’.
  • Love melancholy caused a ‘leane’ appearance, with ‘eyne hollow’ and ‘hew pale’, combined with a ‘solitary disposition’:
  • Melancholy is also linked to introspection, thoughtfulness, and genius
    • ]]>     2017-09-19 11:18:51 UTC https://padlet.com/11mcgoa04/2t8t2yxxv089/wish/188826441     Madness and How it Was Gendered https://padlet.com/11mcgoa04/2t8t2yxxv089/wish/188826500
  • People seemed to be so perplexed by madness that they began to attribute common experiences, such as menopause and postpartum depression, to a kind of madness that usually only women experienced.
  • Shakespeare in some people's views proves that madness in women can be a perfectly legitimate, logically explained affliction that is not specific to gender.
  • Traditional medicine viewed hysteria as a condition
    caused by a “diseased and wandering womb;” therefore, it was primarily believed to be a
    woman’s disease.
  • Gradually, people began
    to challenge the idea that madness was gender-specific and a cause for alienation from
    society. 
  • Shakespeare seems to have been nurturing these progressive thoughts through his depictions of his mad female characters. Shakespeare contrasted Ophelia’s true madness with Hamlet’s feigned madness in order to highlight her sincerity.








    • ]]>     2017-09-19 11:19:06 UTC https://padlet.com/11mcgoa04/2t8t2yxxv089/wish/188826500     Characteristics of Madness for Men and Women https://padlet.com/11mcgoa04/2t8t2yxxv089/wish/188827278
  • Hamlet (Ophelia)- A woman with her hair down was a common image associated with madness.
  • Hysteria in females, male melancholy, alienation, and witchcraft.
  • Discovery of Witchcraft in 1584 as a campaign against Catholic and Puritan exorcists and
    attributed all seemingly supernatural events to feigned symptoms of madness.
  • The common conception was that madness was caused by factors outside of one’s
    own control.
  • women would physically look mad through their appearance, however men would display their madness through melancholy emotions

    • ]]>     2017-09-19 11:22:29 UTC https://padlet.com/11mcgoa04/2t8t2yxxv089/wish/188827278     The Four Humours 11mcgoa04 https://padlet.com/11mcgoa04/2t8t2yxxv089/wish/188827324
  • The four humours were blood, yellow bile, black bile (or melancholy) and phlegm. Each was linked with one of the four elements of earth, air, fire and water and two of the qualities hot, cold, wet and dry
  • “humour” was also used in Shakespeare’s period in relation to character 
    • ]]>     2017-09-19 11:22:41 UTC https://padlet.com/11mcgoa04/2t8t2yxxv089/wish/188827324