Shakespeare and Insanity

For centuries, Shakespeare's tragedies have swept audiences up in dramatic intensity, achieving what Aristotle described as catharsis, the purging of emotional tension through drama. They draw us into the psyche of the protagonist--the angst of Hamlet, the guilt-ridden soul of the Macbeths, and the torment of Lear--with an evocative language of feeling and Shakespeare's use of a most powerful image: the human mind in a state of madness. What drove Shakespeare's characters into insanity? Certainly, …

…indeed. KENT. The wonder is that he hath endured so long. He but usurped his life. (5.3.287-292) Lear's disrupted homeostasis of his humours, mixed with his old age would naturally result in an excess of "black bile" resulting in his unhealthy mental state and subsequent, instantaneous death. "Our intemperance it is, that pulls so many several incurable diseases upon our heads, that hastens old age, perverts our temperature, and brings upon us sudden death." (Burton, 128).