Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Hamlet

  • The sweet smell of success

    Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden Cropped from photo by Kat Jayne from Pexels   “You shall nose him . . .” — Hamlet, Act IV, scene III   It was July 1977. After having done a rotating internship, I was starting my pediatric residency at the academic children’s hospital. My first rotation was in the outpatient…

  • Madness and gender in Gregory Doran’s Hamlet

    Sarah Bahr Indianapolis, Indiana, United States   John Everett Millais, Ophelia, 1851-52, Tate Britain, London. In director Gregory Doran’s 2009 film adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, David Tennant’s Hamlet becomes a bawdy lunatic who consciously or unconsciously uncouples himself from reality. The intentionality of Hamlet’s madness is more muddled than in Shakespeare’s text because of the…

  • Anatomical ghosts in The Merchant of Venice

    Mauro Spicci   Antonio and the dangers of self-diagnosis In the last few years the steadily growing number of attempts to read Shakespeare’s plays from a medical perspective has been justified by the idea that they are not simply the immortal fruits of a genius, but also documents reflecting the historical, cultural, and social background…