Foolish Anger and Intellectual Grief: The Treatment of the Passions in Shakespeare’s King Lear and Hamlet

It becomes apparent from an analysis of Shakespeare’s oeuvre that the protagonists of his tragedies seem to suffer from an inability to withstand the intensity of their passions and two of his works in which this is quite apparent are the tragedies of Hamlet and King Lear. On the one hand the passion which dominates the action in Hamlet is the grief by which Hamlet is stricken following the murder of his father by his uncle and the subsequent marriage his mother and uncle. In King Lear, on the other hand, the play is dominated by Lear’s intense and initially unfounded fury. This is not the only area in which the treatment of the passions differ between these two plays, though, and so I wish to explain through the entirety of this paper that the way in which these two passions are characterized in these two plays is quite different and that they elicit quite different reactions from the audience, and although both their conclusions leave us feeling sympathetic for the tragedy of their respective titanic demises, we feel as though Lear’s is more a result of his own fallacies and Hamlet’s more the result of fate. Hamlet’s grief, though just as profoundly buried as Lear’s anger, through Shakespeare’s characterization of him and the context of the entire narrative, appears to retain some intellectual quality and in fact his knowledge appears superior to the other players of the narrative. Lear’s quixotic (I mean here that it is exaggerated for the matter at hand) anger on the other hand renders him a blind fool and oblivious to the advice helpful characters seek to expound to him.

The first scene I intend to analyze is Act 1, Scene 2 from Hamlet, where Claudius begins the scene by stating that although the dead king’s memory is still fresh in the nation’s mind, the living must now turn their attentions to themselves: “Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature / That we with wisest sorrow think on him / Together with remembrance of ourselves” (1.2.5-7). The audience later learns that in this quotation Claudius is actually trying to deflect attention away from the old monarch’s death, since he was the one responsible for it. Nevertheless Claudius’ use of the phrase “discretion fought with nature” encapsulates one of the major ideas of the play- the battle between apprehension and the passions. Although the speech is addressed to the nation in a way Claudius is speaking to Hamlet, asking him to be weary of the extent to which he indulges his emotion, likely because he is scared of the repercussions it might bring to his person rather than out of some allegiance to the faculty of reason.

The audience learns of the force with which grief has hit Hamlet in the ensuing dialogue he has with his mother where she, after seeing his black attire and brooding manner, asks him “Why seems it so particular with thee?” (1.2.75) in reference to the death of his father. Hamlet, in a rather forceful tone, responds that these are simply trappings that a man acting out grief may show, but he has that within which is beyond exhibition (1.2.76-86). Using anaphora, repeating “nor” at the start of each line and listing those outwards signs which may signal grief, Hamlet emphasizes that the grief not only “seems” particular with him, but rather it is. If we consider the body internal to be the seat of the passions then this makes sense since Hamlet’s grief resides not in his breath, nor his eye, nor his visage (79-81) but rather in some organ within and these are simply but outward expressions of it. Shakespeare deliberately uses the negation of external bodily signs in this instance to awaken the audience to the notion that Hamlet may now be given entirely to his passions.

The style of Hamlet’s response however elicits one to consider wether he actually has abandoned his mind entirely to be governed solely by his passions, and this doubt is something which pervades the audience’s understanding of Hamlet’s sanity throughout the play. I feel it is best put by Polonius, later on in the play, when he suggests that there appears a method to his madness. It is here articulated by Shakespeare through the elegance with Hamlet speaks. His entire retort is stylized beginning with the use of anaphora and development of external bodily symptoms and culminates with rhyming couplet at the end. The structure of Hamlet’s response although different to Shakespeare’s sonnets in terms of syntax and rhyme scheme echoes a similar approach to theme. The first segment lists overt signs of grief; the second introduces the idea that someone among them, namely Claudius, may fake such signs; and the couplet at the end asserts that these signs are nowhere near adequate in conveying his inner feelings. The rhyming of these last two lines perhaps indicates a sense of pride in the conviction with which he laments his father.

Hamlet’s response to Claudius is marked by hyperbolization through allusion, we learn that his heart has grown heavy not only because of his father’s death but also because of what he perceives to be his mother’s disloyalty through her marriage to Claudius and the ease with which she has forgotten the old Dane. Not unlike Lear, in an instance of apostrophe his grief manifests itself in allusions to myth: “So excellent a king, that was to this, / Hyperion to a satyr,” (139-140) and, “Like Niobe, all tears, why, she–” (149). In the first instance Hamlet uses a simile to liken his father to Hyperion, a great sun god and beacon of beauty, while matching Claudius to a satyr, a lustful half-goat creature and the antithesis to Hyperion’s supreme beauty. This comparison is an exaggeration (often the companion of passion), which hyperbolizes the relative differences between the two kings and is generated by the fervency of Hamlet’s feelings. He is expressing his disgust for his mother by figuratively saying she has moved from being the wife of a God to that of a lecherous creature and that she even wept like Niobe at old Denmark’s passing only to move on to Claudius so soon. All these emotions I feel do not seem so alien to the audience, and would possibly had even more of an effect in Shakespeare’s time.

The passion which dominates the action in King Lear is anger and the play begins with the titular Lear becoming incensed at his youngest daughter Cordelia’s refusal to proclaim her love for him in the flattering ways that her sisters have before her. She instead is inclined to literally say nothing and from then on the madness precipitates. Lear is angered such an extent that he disowns Cordelia, and through his speech, it becomes evident that he like Hamlet has an exaggerated sense of events. While Hamlet likens his father to Hyperion, Lear claims that, “By the sacred radiance of the sun” (1.1.116) and “by all operations of the orbs” (118) he disowns his daughter. A seemingly trivial incident has for him called upon the powers of heaven to exercise punishment. In an instance of hyperbolization Lear states that Cordelia is now as unfamiliar to him as barbarians and cannibals of foreign lands. However while Hamlet seems to have genuine reasons for his intensity of feeling Lear’s own hubris seems to be the reason for his. This is evident in the way he attempts to tease flattery out of Cordelia: “what can you say to draw / A third more opulent than your sisters?” (1.1.91-92). The ridiculousness of what Lear is saying makes his passion seem more misplaced and bungling when compared with Hamlet and this is only emphasized when he makes such grandiose statements as the one he says to Kent, who is trying to calm him down: “Come not between the dragon and his wrath” (1.1.130). Here he is comparing his fury to the mythological paragon of anger- the dragon.

These kinds of statements persist throughout the scene: “the bow is bent and drawn, / make from the shaft,” (8-9) replies Lear to Kent, when he again pleads with him to see reason. Here Lear likens his wrath to a bow drawn on a target from which it will not waiver and through this metaphor develops the motif of Lear having lost his sight because of his misdirected wrath. He has only Cordelia’s in his sights when it is his two other daughters who will betray him. He is so full of rage that he will not even listen to his most trusted of advisors, Kent. Here one can make another distinction between the passions’ effect on Hamlet and Lear respectively. On the one hand Hamlet’s profound sadness opens him up to the possibility that the ghost really is an apparition of his father and subsequently to the possibility of meeting it: “If it assume my noble father’s person, / I’ll speak to it though hell itself should gape / And bid me hold my peace,” (1.3.244-246). Hamlet shows his bravery here (a heroic quality) in stating that even though it may be a hazard to his soul, he wishes to speak with the ghost and from it he learns the truth about his fathers death, setting in motion his revenge.

Lear’s anger, on the other hand, apparent from the aforementioned quotations, blinds him to the truth of the matter which is unfolding and even incites him to banish Kent. He goes so far as to label Kent a ‘recreant’ (1.1.181), a word which can denote coward or traitor, when Kent is rather the only one who stays true to Lear even after it becomes clear his daughters have no interest in maintaining his royal retinue and privileges. After learning that Kent (in disguise) has offered his services to Lear, the fool says, “Let me hire him too. Here’s my coxcomb,” (1.4.625). The fool offers Kent his coxcomb because he thinks he is the real fool for pledging his allegiance to such a doomed lord and this instance shows how Kent is in actuality quite the opposite of a recreant. One can see here then that while Hamlet’s anguish over his father’s death leads him to the truth of the matter, Lear’s anger leads him away from it.

Another area in which we can examine the treatment of the passions in these two plays is looking at how the other characters in each play views the afflictions of Lear and Hamlet respectively. In Hamlet what is characteristic to all the other players is that they think or they purport to know the source of Hamlet’s depression or madness, but in reality none of them do. In Act 2, Scene 2, Polonius approaches Claudius after he has found a love letter from Hamlet to Ophelia and claims to have found the cause of his moody disposition and the language he uses is of note: “we find out the cause of this effect, / Or rather say, the cause of this defect,” (101-103). For Polonius, Gertrude and Claudius Hamlet’s affectation is a “defect” which would suggest he is want of something and while Polonius goes on to say that what he desires is Ophelia’s love, the reality of situation is that he desires justice for the spirit of his father.

What follows is a series of jests directed by Hamlet at Polonius who is entirely oblivious to the insults being hurled his way. I will paraphrase and analyze one of these instances here to illustrate how Hamlet maintains an intellectual quality through word play even in the depth of his supposed madness: when Polonius asks him what he is reading he replies, “Slanders, sir; for the satirical rogue says here / that old men…have a plentiful lack of wit,” and that, “I hold it not honesty…for / you yourself, sir, should be as old as I am if, like a / crab you could go backward,” and Polonius thinks that all of this is quite clever(2.2.198-206). The book Hamlet is reading does not relay such a philosophy, in reality he is teasing Polonius’ stupidity, knowing that this conversation has other covert purposes. Polonius assumes that Hamlet is claiming that old men such as him are not stupid, but what Hamlet is saying is that though crabs move backwards time, moves forward and people like Polonius get duller with age. By not understanding this insult Polonius in fact confirms it. Thus it becomes apparent that Hamlet is more aware of what is happening than those around him and Polonius is quite right in asserting, “Though this be madness, yet there / is method in’t,” (2.2.207-208).

Claudius and Gertrude try to characterize Hamlet’s condition as a spiritual defect and indicative of a stubborn imbalance. Claudius, upon hearing Hamlet’s response to the question of seems, says that Hamlet’s deep seated anguish reflects “impious stubbornness” (1.2.94) and that it is act of “a mind impatient” (96). The word impious would seem to indicate that Hamlet’s feelings are against the will of heaven, but in fact Claudius is the one who has shown impiety, as the audience comes to know, by murdering his brother and committing incest, both of which are mortal sins against god. Characterizing Hamlet’s defect as being of a spiritual nature rather than a physiological one, seems to imply the strength with which he wishes to honour his father and the throne of Denmark and this separates him from other characters of the play and adds to the development of his heroic nature. We the audience find it odd that the scene of the late King’s wake and the celebration of the new King’s marriage have coincided so and Hamlet seems to be the only one who cannot move pass such a transgression that other players seems to have already come to terms with. Essentially, in the audience’s eyes, as opposed to those of the other players, his suffering appears to have warrant.

So it becomes clear that Hamlet’s passion opens him to the truth even in the face of other characters in the play trying to misrepresent it. For Lear, however it quickly becomes evident that quite the opposite is true. In Act 1, Scene 1, the majority of advice on apprehension comes from Kent and the imagery of seeing and physical defect is repeated in order to depict Lear as a figure who has become metaphorically blinded. Kent utters such phrases as “See better Lear, and let me still remain / The true blank of thine eye,” (170-171), and “Kill thy physician, and the fee bestow / Upon the foul disease,” (177-178). The first quotation is Kent’s response to Lear asking him to get out of his sight, Kent then pleads with him to figuratively see better for his vision has become clouded by anger, a motif which is continued through the play. Kent refers to himself as the physician in the second phrase and here we see a differentiation between the affliction of Lear and Hamlet. Whilst in Hamlet, others, namely Claudius, attempt to propose that his condition is a spiritual defect, something less concrete than an actual physical disease, in King Lear, Kent makes it apparent that Lear is in fact suffering a physiological ailment in the appearance of the word physician and once again this reinforces the misplaced characterization of Lear’s anger.

The fool also becomes an integral figure when it comes to understanding the fallacy of Lear’s emotions and his control over them. The fool teaches Lear a speech about guarding against one’s emotions and being balanced in life and in my opinion the most profound concerning Lear are the first two lines: “Have more than thou showest, / Speak Less than thou knowest,” (1.4.648-649). This is exactly what Lear refuses to do in partitioning his Kingdom according to the praises offered by his respective daughters and proclaiming that they must house his retinue of one hundred knights. He is not tactful at all in showing his hand essentially and leaves himself opened to be tricked by all. Conversely this is exactly what Hamlet does; by feigning madness and pretending to be oblivious to the other players whilst all the while knowing the truth of his father’s death, he is just as affected by his passion but reveals less.

Though both these characters regard themselves as grand figures embroiled in mythic plots, their individual characterization differs them greatly. Lear is characterized as taking the place of a fool blinded by his anger to those who truly wish to help him and open to manipulation by those that conspire against him. While Hamlet is characterized as a headstrong son, who shows courage in mourning his fathers memory, while others are unwilling and restore dignity to the throne of Denmark.

Works Cited

Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmark. New York: Signet Classics, 1998.

Shakespeare, William. King Lear. Woodbridge, Conn: Apollo Books, 1998. Print.