The medical knowledge that William Shakespeare possessed has awed scholars for centuries. Theories about the provenance of his knowledge abound (such as his son-in-law being a physician), and the inclusion of medical terms and ailments throughout his plays suggests a broad knowledge of disease and sickness. Scholars have noted how he sprinkles references to dermatologic, neurologic, orthopedic, and metabolic ailments throughout his plays, mentioning carbuncles, fistulas, corpulence, rhinophyma, scurvy, ague, enuresis, kyphosis, epilepsy, and parkinsonism.1 What seems to strike post-Enlightenment audiences—and what sets Shakespeare apart from many of his contemporaries—is his portrayal of “complex” characters, those with what we envision as rich interior worlds and with whom a modern audience can resonate. There is a reason psychiatrists such as Sigmund Freud have rushed back to Shakespeare and (sometimes anachronistically) found in his characters various psychiatric diagnoses such as depression, anxiety, paranoia, jealous delusions, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Suicide and suicidal ideation are prevalent themes in some of Shakespeare’s most well-known characters.
A surprisingly common theme
The gravest outcome of a psychiatric illness is death by suicide, which occurs in 13 of Shakespeare’s characters.2 There are additional characters who exhibit suicidal ideation without a completed act. Shakespearean characters whose lives end in suicide are variably portrayed, dying by various means and circumstances. Hamlet (who dies at the hand of his foe, Laertes), famously soliloquizes the theme of suicide and the afterlife. He ponders “tak[ing] arms against a sea of troubles.” Ophelia dies ambiguously. Immediately after, her mother and brother recount her death in a brook—having had “too much of water” when her garments “heavy with their drink, | pull’d the poor wretch from her melodious lay | To muddy death.” The 2 clowns/gravediggers then debate whether Ophelia deserves a Christian burial and if her death should be considered a suicide: did the water drown her, or did she drown herself?3
Lady Macbeth’s suicide is offstage, punctuated by a “night-shriek.” Romeo drinks poison and dies “with a kiss.” Juliet quickly follows, making her body the sword’s sheath which “there rust, and let [her] die.” Othello stabs himself after requesting that his peers will “speak of me as I am.” One of King Lear’s daughters poisons her sister “and after [slays] herself.” Timon dies by his cave, “entomb’d upon the very hem o’ the sea.” In Antony and Cleopatra, after being told that Cleopatra has killed herself with Antony’s name on her lips, Antony begs to be stabbed and then stabs himself; he is not defeated by Caesar, but rather conquered by himself: “none but Antony | Should conquer Antony.” Cleopatra and her lady-in-waiting, Charmian, kill themselves with an asp. In Julius Caesar, Brutus runs upon his sword. Cassius begs for his own death, asking that “this good sword, | That ran through Caesar’s bowels, search this bosom.” Portia, it is reported, “swallowed fire.”
Shakespeare uses specific stylized language to portray characters in psychological anguish and suicidal states. Scholars have discussed how he uses certain stylistic language to highlight the anguish that happens during solitary, solipsistic moments of contemplation.4 Moments of anguish and suicidal ideation are marked by verbal repetition. An example of this repetition comes in Hamlet’s speech after he returns to the kingdom where his uncle has usurped his father, when he laments that he cannot end his own life. He says:
O, that this too too sullied flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d
His canon ’gainst self-slaughter! O God, God,
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world.
In these 6 lines, there are 2 instances of verbal repetition: “too too” and “God, God.” In this moment of solitude and despair, Hamlet’s speech fractures; his fractured speech reflects his fractured psyche. While Hamlet speaks of staleness and stagnation in the world, his words represent a sterile excess. No meaning is elicited by their repetition; there is no forward momentum to his speech. The words reflect the extent to which Hamlet is stuck and divided in this moment. Something similar happens in Macbeth’s “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” speech. The words march on, and with each repetition they become increasingly hollow and brittle.
Why does this discussion of suicide in Shakespeare hold value for a contemporary psychiatrist? First, there is no single prototypical suicidal character in Shakespeare. His characters who are suicidal vary in their demographics and incentives for ending their lives. In this way, he provides a rich framework, one with which many people can engage. Second, this discussion fits into an existing paradigm for using art therapy (specifically Shakespeare) as a treatment modality for trauma.5 Programs such as DE-CRUIT have used the recitation of Shakespearean verse as a means of processing trauma in veterans.5 While Shakespeare does not mention a remedy for suicide in his plays, perhaps the text can serve as medicine. Third, the repetitive speech that Shakespeare uses in times of anguish could be a fairly accurate reflection of speech patterns in patients who are suicidal. Research that completed a spoken language analysis of patients who were suicidal has found “mechanical and repetitive phrasing” as a quality of these patients’ speech.6,7
For hundreds of years, critics have searched beyond the text for Shakespeare’s voice and opinion; what did he himself think of melancholy, despair, or suicide? We cannot know. We, as readers, are invited to explore a nuanced and multifaceted view of suicide, one that neither chides nor valorizes the act, and provides ambiguity rather than condemnation.