Study Notes on Hamlet's Melancholy (from A.C. Bradley's Shakespearean Tragedy).

WHY DOES HAMLET DELAY? The reason is: he's melancholic. This state of mind is quite unnatural to him and induced by special circumstances. The Schlegel-Coleridge theory states that Hamlet's ability to act has been eaten up by thought. Bradley states that Hamlet's reflectiveness played a certain part in the production of the melancholy and was only a contributory cause of his irresolution to act. Of course, melancholy once established only induced more and more thinking …showed first 75 words of 1641 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1641 total…cowardice? Is it conscience? Does conscience make a coward of us all? Is it sloth? Can I be thinking too precisely on the event? Why do I delay if I have the cause, the will, the strength and means to act? These are the questions of a mind stimulated for a moment to shake off the weight of melancholy, and, because at that moment he is free from it, he cannot understand its paralyzing pressure.