Presentazione Storica

madness of shakespeare and others...

Romano Sofia

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index

7. Achille

8. Orlando

1. Madness

2.To be or not to be

3. Shakespeare's madness

4. Hamlet

5. Ofelia

6. Macbeth

Madness

Talking about madness is not so simple or obvious. It is even difficult to understand when it is possible to distinguish between normality and madness, when the boundary of one is crossed to enter the other. And this would open a further path to deeper questions about what we call normality and our belief in being normal. However, what can be stated with certainty is that in each of us there is a hint of pure madness, which makes us unique and distinguishes us from the crowd, which allows us to be, say or do what we otherwise would not be, say or do..

"Madness" represents a complex reality with different facets, some of which are little taken into consideration and often difficult to perceive and specify.

The monologue To be or not to be is one of the most famous passages of the opera Hamlet by William Shakespeare and represents a crucial point in the protagonist's introspection. This speech explores the depth of human existence and the boundary between life and death. Hamlet, the prince of Denmark, meditates on the nature of pain and the attraction of non-being, or suicide, as an escape from the suffering and injustices of life. This reflection leads Hamlet to consider the fear of the unknown after death, the "unexplored country, from which no traveler returns", which causes one to choose to endure known evils rather than fly to others one does not know. The monologue is therefore an expression of Hamlet's existential crisis, which touches on universal themes such as doubt, fear of the unknown and the search for meaning in human suffering.

to be or not to be?

Shakespeare's madness

Madness is a theme that runs through all world literature, of any era. The world of theater is no exception. And Shakespeare's works teach on the subject. The madness that can be felt in the works of the talented English playwright is chameleonic, transformative, tragic or funny depending on the case, a small spark or destructive fire.

HAMLET

The character who in common memory embodies the traits of madness is undoubtedly Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark, despite his being a ploy, a fiction, created ad hoc to reveal the palace intrigues and unmask the murderers of his father, or mother and the uncle, conspiratorial lovers. An apparent madness dictated by the desire for revenge.

OFELIA

Shakespeare, a fine connoisseur of the human soul, manages to create, within the same drama, another character who is the bearer of a different type of madness; we are talking about the delicate Ophelia, one of the saddest and most moving figures of the entire Shakespearean production.

MACBETH

Madness in this case is a fever, a plague that worsens slowly and inexorably and infects everything with its visions of death. The entire drama is in fact played on a crescendo of hallucinations that affect the mind of the protagonist and his wife: the dagger soaked in blood, suspended in mid-air, pointing towards Duncan's room, the ghost of his friend Banquo sitting at the banquet, the Lady's blood-stained hands. Guilt crushes them like a boulder, makes them sleepless, and not even the surprising rationality of the woman survives. This almost symbiotic couple falls apart when Lady Macbeth, the apparently stronger element of the two, commits suicide, dragging her partner, left alone to bear the weight of the crimes committed, into the vortex of a madness with no return.

But Hamlet is not the only Shakespearean drama in which one "smells the smell of madness".In Macbeth, for example, the eponymous protagonist, blinded by the desire for power, is guilty of horrendous and bloody crimes that will determine his unhealthy end. The death spiral begins with the assassination of the sovereign Duncan and continues with the death of Banquo , killed by assassins sent by Macbeth himself.

L'IRA DI ACHILLE

The world of literature is full of "crazy" characters. The first to mention it is Homer, who defines it as a punishment from the Gods: in fact, it is often the divinities themselves who have a hand in it, unleashing the blind madness of men which takes the form of uncontrolled and bloody rage. Madness, in Greek literature, is one of the means by which men can know the extreme manifestations of their nature. Achilles' anger, in this sense, can be read as a form of lucid madness: scholars, in this regard, point out the analogy between the Greek term menis (anger) and mania (madness).

In Ariosto, the madness of the 'wise' knight par excellence, Orlando, is the characterizing fact of the novel: the poet takes up Boiardo's idea of ​​falling in love with the paladin, expanding it and taking it to its extreme consequences.The theme of 'madness' is announced in the second stanza of the first canto of the Furioso.

ORLANDO FURIOSO

'madness' is closely connected to love.

Orlando goes crazy when he reads the messages of mutual love exchanged between Angelica and Medoro, engraved on the bark of the trees.In the grip of pain over this bitter discovery, the paladin was desperate.

The 'madness' that Ariosto talks about should actually be read in a metaphorical key as the other side of a collective madness based on the denial of truth, on fiction and on the conviction of possessing truth and certainties.

ThANK YOU!

If Hamlet pretended to be mad, Ophelia really goes mad and reaches the extreme act of suicide, victim of a world mixed with falsehood, cruelty and violence.If Hamlet's madness is ambiguous and disturbing, Ophelia's is shocking, because she is the sacrificial victim who pays for the crimes of others. The young woman is oppressed by the double mourning of her father's murder and her lover's abandonment.

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In the madness the truth emerges and for Ophelia all that remains is suicide, but her death becomes the decisive key to the tragedy, because it will push King Claudius, his brother Laertes, Queen Gertrude and Hamlet himself to abandon the world of words and doubt to take action.

Shakespeare, a fine connoisseur of the human soul, manages to create, within the same drama, another character who is the bearer of a different type of madness; we are talking about the delicate Ophelia, one of the saddest and most moving figures of the entire Shakespearean production.

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Tip:

Interactivity is the key element to capture the interest and attention of your students. A genially is interactive because your group explores and interacts with it.

Did you know that...

We retain 42% more information when the content moves? It is perhaps the most effective resource to capture the attention of your students.

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At Genially we use AI (Awesome Interactivity) in all our designs, so you can level up with interactivity and turn your classes into something that adds value and hooks.

it's true?

Is Hamlet's madness true or false? Is the father's ghost true or false? Did Claudio really kill his brother? Did the Queen Mother participate in the assassination or not? Hamlet wears the mask of madness because it allows him to say everything he thinks, because it allows him to overcome all the obstacles that hide the truth. Everyone formulates hypotheses about the cause of his madness: Polonius believes that he went mad out of love; the king thinks that the reasons are mourning for his father, frustrated ambition, jealousy for his mother; the queen thinks that the illness is linked to the death of her father and her second marriage; Dr. Freud thinks he was overcome by a devastating Oedipus complex. Hamlet plays with all these hypotheses, he uses them to conduct his game, to dominate everyone in his desperate search for the truth and says to Horatio "Don't be surprised if from now on you see me acting crazy", if he puts on a mask to protect himself and his plans for revenge.