The death of Hamnet: an essay on grief and creativity.

Full Abstract

The author argues that Shakespeare's Hamlet (1600) was influenced by the death in 1596 of the playwright's 11-year-old twin son, Hamnet. Beyond the similarity between the dead child's name and the play's title, the language of the play, a supreme act of sublimation, does at times seem preoccupied with a kind of linguistic twinning. The play's variations on the theme of doubling-pairs of characters, for example, and the many instances of hendiadys, a figure of speech using two substantives to denote a single complex meaning, as well as Hamlet's play within a play-are indirect references to the dead twin, the author contends.

Author information

Author/s: Mahon, Eugene J (EJ);

Affiliation: Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, Columbia College of Physicians & Surgeons, USA. Ejmahon(-atsign-)aol.com

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Biography; Historical Article; Journal Article

Journal: The Psychoanalytic quarterly (Psychoanal Q), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2009-Apr; vol 78 (issue 2) : pp 425-44

Dates: Created 2009/06/10; Completed 2009/06/18;

PMID: 19507447, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 6/18/2009, IMS Date: 18 Jun 2009 00:00:00)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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