ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the historical Hamlet, at a character – almost, it would seem, a person – who has in essence been alive and a half centuries and more. It describes Hamlet the person and can do only a little more for Hamlet on the couch, but since Hamlet has no existence outside the boundaries of his play. Thus, nineteenth-century critical and theatrical opinion continued largely to operate within the framework established by the Romantics. Hamlet was an enigma, but that was part of his fascination. Nineteenth-century psychiatrists analysed Hamlet in terms of his actions, and their relation to his expressed states of mind and emotions. They noted, of course, his obsession with his mother's remarriage but were much more interested in his relationship with Ophelia than with Gertrude. But Hamlet changed with the coming of psychoanalysis. Hamlet is fending himself from the persistent questioning and spying of his erstwhile friends.
