Fooles of Nature: The Epistemology of Hamlet

Hamlet was written near the peak of a crisis of epistemological thinking for many Europeans. This essay argues that concern with epistemology is the central structural principle of the play, uniting many details of plot and language in ways not generally acknowledged in a modern critical discourse concerned rather with issues of individual identity and personal psychology. Reading the play with this focus, with particular attention to the broad range of assumptions and expectations of Shakespeare’s contemporaries, also helps to clarify the playwright’s values with regard to prior tradition and emergent trends, revealing the great innovator in language, drama, and verse to be staunchly and systematically resistant to some of the most important modernizing tendencies of his day. [A.D.]