Great Regulars: I had always thought of Hamlet's melancholy

as existential. I saw his sense that "the world is out of joint" as vague and philosophical. He's a depressive, self-obsessed young man who can't stop chewing at big metaphysical questions. But reading the play after my mother's death, I felt differently. Hamlet's moodiness and irascibility suddenly seemed deeply connected to the fact that his father has just died, and he doesn't know how to handle it. He is radically dislocated, stumbling through the world, trying to figure out where the walls are while the rest of the world acts as if nothing important has changed.

from Meghan O'Rourke: Slate: Hamlet's Not Depressed. He's Grieving
also Meghan O'Rourke: Slate: "Normal" vs. "Complicated" Grief
also Meghan O'Rourke: Slate: Dreaming of the Dead

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