Hamlet

"Hamlet the symbol of the neurotic? Perhaps, but, Freud seems to be saying, let's not be in a hurry to psychoanalyze Hamlet or Shakespeare as Hamlet. Let's not forget, before thinking anything about the play and the character of Hamlet, that this character and this play are already thinking, and that this is undoubtedly one of the reasons for the work's exceptional fortune through the ages. Hamlet is the one who takes center stage, a figure of perplexity, to call out to the spectator, taking him as witness to his thoughts in monologues of singular force, capable of touching even today an audience so lacking in metaphysics. Hamlet's singularity is first and foremost this: he is the one who comes to speak to himself in the absence of others, as if he had a particular truth to communicate to us, to exhibit in our presence. Isn't this what immediately moves us, this very perceptible way he reflects in our presence without appearing to see us? Hamlet thinks, and the play in turn thinks or makes him think: what he communicates does not depend on his presence alone, does not coincide with the representation he gives of himself; his truth is also played out beyond himself, between what he believes he thinks and the thinking of others, between the gaze he casts on himself and the gaze that, coming from others, enlightens him in return - not to mention the gaze he has on the gaze of others. "Bernard Sichère