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'To be or not ...' Lacan and the meaning of being in Shakepeare's Hamlet

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posted on 2012-01-01, 00:00 authored by Matthew Sharpe
This chapter provides a reading of Lacan's important reading of Shakespeare's Hamlet in Seminar VI, in the context of his developing thought on the neuroses, and obsessional neurosis in particular.  The article draws atttention to the way Lacan's focus shifts from Hamlet's 'Oedipal' relation towards his uncle towards his inability to fathom teh desire of his mother, Gertrude.  This interpretive optic opens up many scenes of the play, and strange transformations in the heor's conduct: his terrible hostility to Ophelia, and his 'rebound' at the moment that he leaps into her open grave, able at last to say 'It is I, Hamlet the Dane!" and undertake to do the task his father's ghost had implored of him.

History

Title of book

The literary Lacan : from literature to lituraterre and beyond

Chapter number

3

Pagination

89 - 116

Publisher

Seagull Books

Place of publication

Calcutta, India

ISBN-13

9780857420374

ISBN-10

0857420372

Language

eng

Publication classification

B1 Book chapter

Copyright notice

2012, Seagull Books

Extent

11

Editor/Contributor(s)

S Biswas

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