Madness in HamletA consideration of the madness of the hero Hamlet within the Shakespearean play of the same name, shows that his feigned madness sometimes borders on real madness, but probably only by coincidence. Hamlet's conversation with Claudius is mad for the latter. Lawrence Danson in “Tragic Alphabet” describes how Hamlet's use of the syllogism is pure madness for the king: What Hamlet shows with his use of the syllogism is that nothing sure can rest on falsehood masquerading as the royal order of Denmark . From this point of view, however, the syllogism is simply crazy: its logic is part of Hamlet's “ancient disposition.” Sane men know, after all, that “man and wife are one flesh” only in a metaphorical or symbolic sense; they know that only a madman would seek literal truth in linguistic conventions. And Claudio is right in saying that such "madness in adults must not go unnoticed" (III.i.fine). Because the madman, precisely because he does not accept society's compromises and because he explores its conventions in search of meanings that they cannot bear, exposes the defects that "normal" society keeps hidden (70). Phyllis Abrahms and Alan Brody in “Hamlet and the Elizabethan Revenge” Tragedy Formula” consider the hero's madness completely fake and not real: Hamlet is a masterpiece not because it conforms to a set of conventions but because it takes those conventions and transmutes them into Pure gold with a vital and relevant meaning. Hamlet's feigned madness, for example, becomes the touchstone to illuminate the mysterious nature of sanity itself (44-45). Hamlet's first words in the play say that Claudius is "A little more than kinsman and less... center of the sheet ......y Martin). On some of Shakespeare's female characters, 6th ed. London : William Blackwood and Sons, 1899. Felperin, Howard “O'erdoing Termagant.” Modern Critical Interpretations: Hamlet. Ed. Harold Bloom New York: Chelsea House, 1986. Rpt of "O'erdoing Termagant: An Approach to Shakespearean Mimesis" . The Yale Review 63, n.3 (Spring 1974). Foakes, RA “The Courtly Setting of the Play.” Readings on Hamlet. Ed. Don Nardo: Greenhaven Press, 1999. Rpt of "Hamlet and the Court of Elsinore". Shakespeare Survey: An Annual Survey of Shakespearean Study and Production. 1995. http://www.chemicool.com/Shakespeare/hamlet/full.html No line nn.