Review article
https://doi.org/10.47960/2831-0322.2022.2.26.81
GENDERED PERCEPTIONS OF MADNESS: FEMALE HYSTERIA AND MALE MELANCHOLY IN SHAKESPEARE’S HAMLET, MACBETH AND KING LEAR
Matea Džaja
orcid.org/0000-0002-4174-3404
; Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Mostar
Nina Dugandžić
orcid.org/0000-0003-0354-3476
; Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Mostar
Abstract
Madness, as one of the most controversial and challenging Renaissance topics, was not only deeply influenced by its mediaeval heritage but also the mediaeval perceptions of dominating masculinity and subordinating, vulnerable femininity. Thus, the numerous Renaissance treatises feverishly tried to explain various and, often identical, mental disorders. However, this was done with difficulty. The aim of this paper is to analyze and discuss the gendered perception of two of these mental disorders, namely female hysteria and male melancholy. Hysteria was primarily aestheticized and eroticized, while melancholy was intellectualized. As a man of his time, Shakespeare had surely been familiar with the gendered perception of madness. His portrayal of women in tragedies abounds in varieties due to his direct questioning of these categories. His first hysterical character, Ophelia, is unquestionably conventional while lady Macbeth challenges the established gender roles. King Lear, on the other hand, is a peculiar case of a man suffering from a female disease.
Keywords
madness; hysteria; melancholy; Shakespeare; Ophelia; lady Macbeth; king Lear.
Hrčak ID:
293319
URI
Publication date:
3.2.2023.
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