A radical change in the way we understand Hamlet came about in the years surrounding the turn of the nineteenth century. This change accompanied the development of a new aesthetic that dominated the arts, coupled with a renewed interest in psychology. Not were there great advances in the treatment of the mentally ill, but there was also a new fascination with melancholy which played a role in both the arts and psychology.

This section deals with the range of interpretations of Hamlet that grew out of the new approach to Shakespeare's work that came about with the Romantic revolution.

1.  Mal du siècle 2.  Characters on the Couch 3.  Hamlet's Delay 4.  The Tragic Flaw Revisited      a.  Some Viscious Mole of Nature 5.  Representative Thoughts on Hamlet      a.  August Wilhelm von Schlegel      b.  Samuel Taylor Coleridge      c.  J.W. von Goethe      d.  Charles Lamb      e.  William Hazlitt      f.  Victor Hugo      g.  Percy Bysshe Shelley 6.  Two Centuries of Thought