A. C. Bradley's Shakespearean Tragedy, p. 155

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Bradley, A. C. Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth.

2nd ed. London: Macmillan, 1905.

PAGE 155
HAMLET

appear to Hamlet, already sick at heart because of his mother's frailty,¹ and now finding that, the moment fortune has turned against him, the woman who had welcomed his love turns against him too? Even if he divined (as his insults to Polonius suggest) that her father was concerned in this change, would he not still, in that morbid condition of mind, certainly suspect her of being less simple than she had appeared to him? ² Even if he remained free from this suspicion, and merely thought her deplorably weak, would he not probably feel anger against her, an anger like that of the hero of Locksley Hall against his Amy?
     4. When Hamlet made his way into Ophelia's room, why did he go in the garb, the conventionally recognized garb, of the distracted lover? If it was necessary to convince Ophelia of his insanity, how was it necessary to convince her that disappointment in love was the cause of his insanity? His main object in the visit appears to have been to convince others, through her, that his insanity
   ¹'Frailty, thy name is woman!' he had exclaimed in the first soliloquy. Cf. what he says of his mother's act (III. iv. 40):
Such an act
That blurs the grace and blush of modesty,
Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose
From the fair forehead of an innocent love
And sets a blister there.

   ²There are signs that Hamlet was haunted by the horrible idea that he had been deceived in Ophelia as he had been in his mother; that she was shallow and artificial, and even that what had seemed simple and affectionate love might really have been something very different. The grossness of his language at the play-scene, and some lines in the nunnery-scene, suggest this; and, considering the state of his mind, there is nothing unnatural in his suffering from such a suspicion. I do not suggest that he believed in it, and in the nunnery-scene it is clear that his healthy perception of her innocence is in conflict with it.
   He seems to have divined that Polonius suspected him of dishonourable intentions towards Ophelia; and there are also traces of the idea that Polonius had been quite ready to let his daughter run the risk as long as Hamlet was prosperous. But it is dangerous, of course, to lay stress on inferences drawn from his conversations with Polonius.

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