Madness as Crisis in Shakespeare's Hamlet and King Lear

Abstract

This article examines Shakespeare's depiction of madness as a complex phenomenon through a comparative study of Hamlet and King Lear. While madness has been historically identified as a strategy of performance in Hamlet and psychological undoing in King Lear, this analysis insists on the duality of madness in exposing underlying anxiety in the early modern period regarding the truthfulness of self-identity, the vulnerability of patriarchal power, and the interrelation between personal failure and political degradation. Through close textual analysis and engagement with new historicist, feminist, and performativity theories, the study demonstrates that the distinction between enacted and genuine madness is not merely a psychological fascination but a necessary spectacle through which Shakespeare questions the nature of authority, masculinity, and selfhood in a period of crisis. The findings reveal that in Hamlet, feigned madness functions as a strategy for navigating political corruption, while in King Lear, genuine madness represents the tragic deconstruction of male identity. This comparative approach contributes to Shakespeare studies by demonstrating how different forms of madness work specifically to challenge male identity and political ideology in early modern drama.