ABSTRACT
When Shakespeare wrote Hamlet in 1601 the melancholy type was almost a fashionable figure, the word melancholy itself a favourite expression. Shakespeare's age had an idea of this type of temperament which is very strikingly differentiated. The same type, in a slightly different shape, turns up again in Shakespeare's Jaques in As You Like It, who actually styles himself a melancholy man. There can be no doubt that Shakespeare refined and ennobled the feelings of his hero in many directions in an unprecedented manner, though leaving intact his fundamental character. Rumelin's idea is that the same Hamlet in whom Shakespeare has put so much of himself is no longer fit to be the hero of the Northern legend, the bloody avenger and fivefold murderer. The indulging in erotic imaginations and the interest taken in procreation and the peculiar qualities of women, due to a feeling of disgust, are regular traits of the melancholy character.
