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Attitudes to madness in Shakespeare William Shakespeare has been universally acknowledged for his warm understanding and acute description of human passions within his many plays. A single and striking example of his powers of observation and intuitive understanding of human mind could be the outstanding way he portrayed as celebrated as unbalanced characters such as Titus Andronicus, Hamlet, Ophelia, Portia or King Lear. Precisely, what we are mainly concerned with here is the exploration of madness within King Lear, significantly ranked with Hamlet as one of Shakespeare’s greatest plays. The lines to follow will be devoted to the study and discussion of madness within King Lear. First of all, we will offer an outlook of Elizabethan society and thought on the subject of madness, since we understand that the portrayal of King Lear’s psychosis necessarily needs to be understood within this context. Later on, we will try to elucidate the intentions underlying the use of madness

within this play, discussing what we consider the main motives to present the audience with such a hazy character living in such a stormy world. The first thing that needs to be said is that that the general perception of madness depends on the context in which it exists, since we believe that cultural, intellectual and economic structures determine how madness is known and experienced within a given society. Since Shakespeare was not a physician, his account for King’s Lear madness go beyond merely medical models and should be understood from an eclectic point of view combining medical and socio-cultural ideas of the Elizabethan times as well as literary perspectives. Let’s have a look at the way Elizabethan England conceived mental illness. Landon (2002) notices that theories and discourse regarding the nature of human beings changed drastically throughout Shakespeare’s life in Elizabethan England, since humankind itself gradually became a legitimate subject of research; she

notices that despite of the fact that Elizabethan philosophers and medics still maintained that soul was an inextricable part of man, soul become separate from the secular study of man’s physical and rational attributes. In this context, mental illness was understood and accepted as a mixture of natural causes and supernatural intervention or possession as a result of, for example, black magic. According to O’Brien (1996), ‘belief in supernatural causes for mental illness was not limited to the illiterate, who were less familiar with ‘physical’ explanations based on the theory of humours [.] even medical doctors who ordinarily pointed to ‘natural’ causes would, in extreme cases, point to supernatural ones. For Elizabethans, these casual categories were not contradictory’ It is worth stating at this point that, as Landon (2002) observes, the predominant paradigm of Elizabethan society was that the ideal condition of man was that of a ‘sound mind in a sound body: any

outside influences on a human being would eventually have both spiritual and physical consequences. O’Brien (1996) highlights that, according to Elizabethan physical psychology, extreme passion destroys the higher faculties and that, if not corrected (the disordering caused) could lead to madness and to death. Indeed, Elizabethan Parish records often list, as causes of death, mental states like ‘frenzy’ or ‘thought’. In some way, all this ideas of the time are found in the tragic hero presented in King Lear. In fact, many scholars have suggested that madness as viewed through Shakespeare does not have to do with psychiatric diagnosis, but with a state of being where normal human emotions and objectivity are pushed to the extreme, possibly as the result of emotional and mental fury and imbalance (the same imbalance is characteristic of Classical Greek notions of madness based on the four humours theory previously mentioned). Actually, it is a fit of rage caused by a great

disappointment what ultimately drives Lear to an insanity that is officially and symbolically established by the storm. Muir (1982) has carefully identified the series of emotional shocks that drive Lear insane. The first he mentions is the attack by his daughter Goneril, which constitutes his first serious premonition of insanity. The second shock is when Lear finds Kent in the stocks. Here, Muir argues that the first physical symbol of hysteria was probably borrowed from Harsnett’s pamphlet on demoniacs or from Edward Jorden’s Brief Discourse of Disease Called The Suffocation of the Mother (1603), where commentaries on the origin of ‘strange actions and passions of the body of man’ are offered. The third shock identified by Muir is the rejection by his daughter Regan, accompanied by the first forewarning rumblings of the storm announcing Lear’s inner turmoil and mounting madness. But, what according to Muir finally pushes Lear over the borderline is the vision of Poor Tom,

since it represents all he has feared to become. As it can bee appreciated, and as previously commented, it seems that it is the fact of becoming aware of the ingratitude and betrayal of his beloved daughters together with other treacheries that slowly drives Lear insane. Lear’s madness is not portrayed, then, as the result of demoniacal possession or witchcraft, as many of Shakespeare’s contemporaries suggested, but as the outcome of a great disappointment when arrogant King Lear faces the truths of life. Ingham (1996) observes with much accuracy that Lear’s madness is a purgatorial journey through which Lear breaks down the false illusions of his courtly world and travels from power, title and arrogant blindness to humanity, friendship and truth before his pitiful death. It is interesting to notice here O’Briens (1996) observation: since the Elizabethan believed that, without correction, insanity usually led to death, the death of Lear probably seemed inevitable for

Shakespeare’s audience as soon as the characters went mad. Related to this, it is also worthwhile considering with Ingham (1996) that this vision of madness as an indirect way to achieve truth, characteristic of Shakespeare’s era, coincides with the Aristotelian view predominant during the Renaissance according to which there is a fine line between madness and divine inspiration. In support of this idea, it is well worth noting that, in Lear’s unbalanced state, we still appreciate nuggets of wisdom essential to the play’s meaning. And this brings us to the question of the literary use of madness Many have argued that the real reason lying beneath Lear’s madness was Shakespeare’s will to covertly criticise Elizabethan society. This would be successfully achieved by following the tradition of safely escaping from censorship by ‘making fools and madmen the vehicle of unpopular truths’ (Muir, 1982). Authors such as Oates have observed that ‘King Lear poses and tests

the vision of life necessarily related to the social and political milieu of the times (in which intrigue, hypocrisy and scandal and murder were commonplace). Some scholars have suggested that, since the play was written sometime before December 26th, 1606, the play is pervaded of a nightmarish sense of peril and impending apocalypse resulting from an unstable political panorama. Reason in madness seems to be used, then, as a protective device to safely include ‘dangerous’ socio-political commentary through the novel. In fact, and through the play, we appreciate commentaries on the deficiencies and hypocrisies of earthy authority and law, on the unfair situation of the poor or on the two-facedness of society. Let us remember the hierarchical character of Elizabethan society respect to the wealth/the powerful and the parents/the elderly; the fact of presenting a father suffering at the hands of his own children could be also considered as a criticism signalling how vulnerable

parents and noblemen are to the depredations of unscrupulous children and, thus, how fragile the fabric of Elizabethan society actually was. As we have been noticing, the use of madness within this play has underlying serious intentions. But another related common place for criticism is connected to the debate around the nature of reality. In fact, the tragedy of King Lear seems to touch upon one of the essential debates of Renaissance thinking: the fact that reality is not always what it seems to be. In this sense, the exploration of Lear’s insanity represents an exploration on reality, appearance and the corrupted world surrounding power. At the beginning, Lear is presented as a king who values appearances above realities and it seems that, only because of his madness, he is able to see beyond hypocritical social conventions and recognizes that power, flattering and arrogance have caused him blindness and have separated him from obligations and real love. In this sense, Oates has

noticed that the problem with Lear is that he fell into ‘paranoia, which rages in those individuals who attempt to direct their lives away from the unconscious and in line with an idealized moral code [], causing him to imagine enemies in those who love him best’. According to this last view, Lear’s madness could be, then, understood as a form of higher wisdom since, in his madness, he finally sees a truth hidden from him when he was a powerful respected king, unless it is too late and death is in its way. In some way, we could finally point that Shakespeare drama reflects the idea that madness is ultimately fatal. As Foucault (1965) comments in Madness and Civilization, ‘In Shakespeare [] madness [] occupies and extreme place, in that it is beyond appeal. Nothing ever restores it either to truth or reason It leads only to laceration and thence to death’. To put the whole matter in a nutshell, we could conclude by saying that, as it happens with Cervante’s Don Quijote, the

use of a madman as main character enables Shakespeare both to explore the possibilities of safe commentary on certain socio-political issues and to make a reflection on transcendental issues. It seems, then, that more similarities can be found between Shakespeare and Cervantes apart from the date of their death: 23rd April, 1616. In fact, it would hardly be an exaggeration to say that, after their death, these authors became so influential as to affect profoundly the course of western literature and culture ever after. It deserves special consideration the fact that both authors are namely remembered for their portrayal of madmen as tragic heroes who died unreconciled and indifferent to society. Works Cited List Foucault, M. 1965 Madness and Civilization [WWW document] URL http://yankolibru/books/philosoph/foucault/madcivilhtm Landon, A. 2002 ‘Elizabethan Psychology and Shakespeare’ [WWW document] URL http://drama.pepperdineedu/shakespeare/spring02/aubrey/aubreylandonhtml Muir, K.

(1982) ‘Madness in King Lear’ in Aspects of King Lear Kenneth Muir and Stanley Wells eds Cambridge: CUP (p. 23-35) Oates, J C. ‘Is this the Promised End?’ The Tragedy of King Lear [WWW document] URL http://wwwusfcaedu/facstaff/southerr/indexhtml O’Brien, R. 1996 ‘The Madness of Syracusan Antipholus’ [WWW document] URL http://purloclcorg/emls/021/obrishakhtml Ingham, Allam. 1996 ´Renaissance view of Madness: King Lear’ [WWW document] URL http://www.engluvicca/Faculty/MBHomePage/ISShakespeare/Resources/WorldView/LearMadnesshtml