'Hamlet' and counter-Humanism (On the significance of human misery and the"commonplace" in Renaissance humanist rhetoric and dialectic)

This essay interprets the question of subjectivity in Hamlet by reappraisin g Renaissance skepticism and by reexamining the medieval debate concerning the misery of man's existence, and the Renaissance celebration of man. A ce ntral concern is the significance of the commonplace in humanist rhetoric a nd dialectic, by which Stoic and Christian thought depreciates passion. In his anguish Hamlet discovers a unique subjectivity as he attempts to reject the wisdom of tradition. But the nature of thought cannot be separated fro m the nature of the mind that thinks, and Hamlet's selfhood capitulates to the role.