Emotion, Performance and Gender in Shakespeare’s Hamlet

Abstract

the prince makes an often-quoted distinction between the external signs of grief and the inner self. On the other hand, the play also problematizes the effeminizing effects that the performance of emotion and the imitation of signs of anger have on the self. This chapter relates the play's representation of the relation between the performance of emotion and the self both to early modern debates about the effects of acted passion and to current (cultural-historical) theory on the transmission and effects of emotion.'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, Nor customary suits of solemn black, Nor windy suspirations of forced breath, No, nor the fruitful river in the eye, Nor the dejected havior of the visage, Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief, That can denote me truly. These indeed seem, For they are actions that a man might play, But I have that within which passes show, These but the trappings and the suits of woe. (Shakespeare 1982, 1.2.77-86)