Shakespeare’s Hamlet says Multiple Personality is the Madness that Makes Sense, and a Mirror to the Writer’s Mind

In this fourth post on Hamlet, I reflect on its two main lessons for this blog.

“Madness” that Makes Sense

Prince Hamlet called him a tedious old fool, because he hadn’t heard Polonius’s perceptive comment: “Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.” Which means that If you look beyond multiple personality’s apparent craziness, it makes sense.

For example, what could seem crazier than when Hamlet’s mother realized (Act 3, Scene 4) that he was seeing and hearing someone who wasn’t there? Yet, if she had known what the voice was saying, she would have found it rational and compassionate (at least toward her).

And if Hamlet’s multiple personality was typical, it would have made even more sense to her if she had interviewed the alternate personality and traced its history back to his childhood, where it originated as a sensible way for Hamlet to cope with a traumatic situation. (I know about typical multiple personality from clinical experience with real people.)

Mirror to the Writer’s Mind

How did Shakespeare come to write a character like Hamlet who had multiple personality?

He certainly didn’t get it from reading Sybil or seeing the movie.

I can’t think of any way other than his personal familiarity with it—he had multiple personality—especially in view of all the other great writers discussed in this blog who had it, too.