''Hamlet and Oedipus'' is a study of
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
's ''
Hamlet
''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play. Set in Denmark, the play (the ...
'' in which
the title character's inexplicable behaviours are subjected to investigation along psychoanalytic lines.
The study was written by
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud ( ; ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies seen as originating fro ...
's colleague and biographer
Ernest Jones, following on from Freud's own comments on the play, as expressed to
Wilhelm Fliess in 1897, before being published in Chapter V of ''
The Interpretation of Dreams'' (1899).
Analysis
In Freud's wake, Jones explains Hamlet's mysterious
procrastination
Procrastination is the act of unnecessarily delaying or postponing something despite knowing that there could be negative consequences for doing so. It is a common human experience involving delays in everyday chores or even putting off tasks such ...
as a consequence of the
Oedipus Complex
In classical psychoanalytic theory, the Oedipus complex is a son's sexual attitude towards his mother and concomitant hostility toward his father, first formed during the phallic stage of psychosexual development. A daughter's attitude of desire ...
: the son continually postpones the act of revenge because of the impossibly complicated psychodynamic situation in which he finds himself. Though he hates his fratricidal uncle, he nevertheless unconsciously identifies with him—for, having killed
Hamlet's father and married
his mother,
Claudius
Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus ( ; ; 1 August 10 BC – 13 October AD 54), or Claudius, was a Roman emperor, ruling from AD 41 to 54. A member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, Claudius was born to Nero Claudius Drusus, Drusus and Ant ...
has carried out what are Hamlet's own unconscious wishes. In addition, marriage to Hamlet's mother gives the uncle the unconscious status of the father—
destructive impulses towards whom provoke great anxiety and meet with repression.
Jones' investigation was first published as "
The Œdipus-complex as an Explanation of Hamlet's Mystery: A Study in Motive" (in ''
The American Journal of Psychology
The ''American Journal of Psychology'' is a journal devoted primarily to experimental psychology. It is the first such journal to be published in the English language (though ''Mind'', founded in 1876, published some experimental psychology earl ...
'', January 1910); it was later expanded in a 1923 publication; before finally appearing as a book-length study (''Hamlet and Oedipus'') in 1949.
Shakespeare's father
Freud had originally linked the writing of ''Hamlet'' (with its oedipal subtext) to the death of Shakespeare's father in 1601, but had to abandon this view when he gave his support to the
Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship–something Jones always rejected in his study.
Reception
In 1986, the historian
Peter Gay
Peter Joachim Gay ( né Fröhlich ; June 20, 1923 – May 12, 2015) was a German-American historian, educator, and author. He was a Sterling Professor of History at Yale University and former director of the New York Public Library's Center for ...
described ''Hamlet and Oedipus'' as "still controversial", noting that the work has been criticized as "literal-minded and unliterary". Gay considered ''Hamlet and Oedipus'' persuasive, but only as a "modest psychoanalytic explanation of Hamlet's hesitation".
See also
References
External links
*
*http://www.shakespeare-navigators.com/jones/ A summary of and the complete text of Jones' 1910 essay which expanded into his 1949 book, ''Hamlet and Oedipus''.
Oedipus and Hamlet (Freud)Information at www.answers.com
{{Hamlet
1949 non-fiction books
Books by Ernest Jones
Critical approaches to Hamlet
English-language non-fiction books
Fiction about incest
Psychoanalytic books