After the Ghost tells Hamlet that Claudius has murdered his father, Hamlet begins to plan his next steps. After all, revenge is a dish best served cold, so it's not like he can just bust into Claudius' bedroom and bump him off in the middle of the night. So in this scene he warns his friends that he will put on an "antic disposition"—i.e., pretend to be a madman.
But here's the thing. After a while, we're not all that sure Hamlet's pretending. Sure he says he's gonna fake it, but we have to remember that Hamlet's already suffering from what the Elizabethans would call "melancholy." And Elizabethan ideas about "madness" are unstable and they're different than modern notions of mental illness. In other words, being melancholy (à la Hamlet) was, to them, a form of madness. Hmmm.
This seems like a good time for a History Snack break. Here's something you might like to know: Shakespeare borrows the idea of feigned madness from one of the play's major sources, the story of Amleth, a legendary Danish tale that dates back to at least the 9th century, if not before then. In the source story, Amleth clearly pretends to be mad after his uncle kills his father and marries his mother, Gerutha. (Sounds familiar, doesn't it?)
In fact, faking madness to throw people off is one of the oldest tricks in the book. In Hamlet, Shakespeare takes it up a notch because he makes us ask: does Hamlet truly go "mad," or is the cuckoo-talk, like the play itself, all an act? And if madness is a form of theatricality (maybe with some "method" in it, as Polonius says)—does that mean that all actors are crazy?
Hey, wait a second. Could Shakespeare be making one big joke at his actors' expense here? In fact, the word antic means mad or bizarre, but it was used a lot in Shakespeare's day to mean a madcap in a drama of some kind (source). You might be more familiar with the word if we said antics as in "that's enough of your antics" or crazy-acting, ya clown.
Shakespeare uses the word antic to mean a mask someone wears in Romeo and Juliet, when Tybalt says that Romeo came to the party "cover'd with an antic face" (1.5.54). If we think about it in that way, maybe Shakespeare is having as much fun with this madness as he possibly can in the theater. Actors do put on masks or characters all the time, just like Hamlet is saying he will here.
The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, usually shortened to Hamlet (/ˈhæmlɪt/), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play.
Horatio is a variation of the Latin Horatius. Many commentators have linked the name to the Latin words ratiō ("reason") and ōrātor ("speaker"), noting his role as a reasoner with Prince Hamlet, and surviving (even though he begged for death) to tell Hamlet's heroic tale at the end of the play.
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Horatio_(Hamlet)
and Marcellus to silence, he tells them that he is going "to put an antic disposition on." RALPH: Hamlet means that he is going to pretend to be crazy. He wants to make Claudius think that he is harmless, incapable of taking revenge for his father's murder.
Specifically, he says he's going to put on an "antic disposition," which means he's going to pretend to be crazy, like an "antic" (which is the role of a theater clown or a grotesque).
Hamlet isn't mad at all. He puts on his “antic disposition” in order to confuse his enemy, Claudius. He says to Horatio “I must be idle”, which means “I have to pretend I'm nuts now”, when he is going to go and interact with the king and the court. Horatio is his only true friend.
After Hamlet has talked to the ghost, he says: “As I perchance hereafter shall think meet, To put an antic disposition on” (1.5. 179-180). This quote is very important because Hamlet reveals that from now on, he will have an “antic deposition” on.
Gertrude, meanwhile, is one of the characters for whom Hamlet puts on his “antic disposition.” Perhaps the ghost appears only to those who would be sympathetic to his plea for revenge. On the other hand, Hamlet's father expressly told Hamlet to leave his mother to God's justice, as if her actions were less culpable.
Examples begin with Hamlet questioning the reality of the ghost. It continues with Hamlet's taking on an "antic disposition" in order to appear mad, though he is not.
SARAH: Ophelia portrays Hamlet as the conventional distraught lover who's gone mad from love: his jacket's undone, he's hatless, his stockings are unfastened and down around his ankles, and his face is as pale as his white shirt.
It has since become a standard English proverb. To be, or not to be, that is the question. Spoken by Hamlet during his soliloquy in the nunnery scene. It remains one of Shakespeare's most famous quotes.
Hamlet's Madness is a Crafty Plan: Hamlet at the beginning of the play informs Horatio 'I perchance hereafter shall think meet/ To put an antic disposition on'- in other words, he is warning them that, having been set the task of avenging his father, he must necessarily act mad to avoid suspicion.
Ophelia tells Polonius of Hamlet's strange appearance and behaviour. Hamlet's behaviour and appearance are so extreme that it's possible that Hamlet is dissembling (play-acting) and simply putting on the “antic disposition” (show of madness) he had prepared his companions for in the previous scene.
Shakespeare uses Ophelia, among other characters, to describe Hamlet's “antic disposition” – changes in both his appearance and behavior. Shortly after expressing his plan to put on his “antic disposition,” Hamlet changes his appearance from that of a presumably attractive young man to that of a sickly figure.
Accordingly, to prevent himself from appearing to be a threat and to gain access to Claudius at the same time, Hamlet decides that he will pretend to be insane ("How strange or odd soe'er I bear myself"; "To put an antic disposition on").
He proclaims that he intends to feign madness to buy time and gather evidence against his uncle, and if it does turn out his uncle indeed murdered his father, he will carry out revenge.
Hamlet puts on an antic disposition for two reasons. The first was to cover up his revenge. The second was to ensure that people thought he was crazy, so he would not be held responsible for his actions.
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