Shakespeare's second best bed was more comfortable than his third best bed.

Given the choice, which would you choose?

Shakespeare is mad because his will doesn't conform to a mythical perfect man fantasy? Rubbish.

No where in this article does Simcox quote perhaps the most clarifying--and damning evidence that refutes this entire premise: Hamlet's line to Horatio in Act I Scene V when he says "How strange or odd soe'er I bear myself,--as I, perchance, hereafter shall think meet to put an antic disposition on...."

Hamlet says from the beginning that he will "put" his "antic disposition on." And then, sure enough, we watch the next 4 acts to see how he has put this behavior "on." The issue is if he's capable of taking it off, which is not textually clear and is therefore open to multiple interpretations.

Cireena Simcox also seems to have thoroughly ignored the fact that Shakespeare was not the original author of the story of the play in question either. An earlier play (no longer extant) titled "Ur-Hamlet" believed to be by Thomas Kid reportedly depicts the Danish Prince feigning depression and madness. Francois Belleforest's French version on the medieval original also depicts the same, many, many years before Shakespeare penned his version. And of course there is the origin of the play itself, based on a historical narrative titled "Historia Danica" from the 13th century Danish Chronicler Saxo Grammaticus about the prince of Jutland (later Denmark) named 'Amleth' whose father 'Feng' (the King) is murdered by 'Horvendal' (the King's brother and 'Amleth's' uncle). The structure is almost exactly similar, with 'Amleth' feigning madness, exacting revenge, and eventually killing everyone by burning down the castle!

With these facts left out of the origins of Shakespeare's play, Simcox has short-sidedly postulated that only Shakespeare must've been afflicted himself with some sort of neurological impairment to have penned such a play as "Hamlet". What would she say about Saxo, Belleforest, and perhaps Kyd? Simcox needs to remember a very basic thing about Shakespeare: he was a Lord of Language, but not of plot.

The strength of Simcox's argument here rests on, I think, taking many things either entirely out of context, or too literal. Therein lies the permeating greatness and genius of Shakespeare; he engenders infinite interpretations of his work.

Other areas of Simcox's argument which would've been appreciated is in the juxtapositioning of Hamlet's 'feigned' madness and Ophelia's actual dementia. However 'real' or 'imagined' it is, Hamlet's madness is debated; Ophelia's is not in dispute and is universally acknowledged as the genuine article.

I was happy to see Simcox make the admission that "The dearth of biographical data pertaining to Shakespeare precludes the formation of any conclusions regarding his psychological profile." To this, I agree.

Simcox also says: he [Shakespeare] didn’t carouse with his colleagues [Ben] Jonson and [Christopher or 'Kit'] Marlowe. There is substantial historical evidence that refutes this claim, most obviously Jonson’s dedicatory poem in the 1623 folio where he famously says “He was not of an age, but for all time.” This sort of remark invited by two of Shakespeare’s actor friends to be included in the Complete Works seems unusual from a complete stranger or estranged friend of Shakespeare as Simcox suggests.

I'm no expert on Bipolar Disorder or clinical depression, but Simcox does maintain that evidences of these illnesses result in erratic, irregular periods of work and, as one of my students pointed out, Shakespeare's output of work refutes this diagnoses. The only obvious 'break(s)' in his own work as a dramatist after joining the Lord Chamberlain's Men in 1586 was when the theatres were closed for the spread of the plague in London--and in both instances, Shakespeare wrote the epic poems of 'The Rape of Lucrece" and "Venus and Adonis". For someone stricken with the illnesses Simcox maintains, they seemed to have little or no effect on his work as a poet and dramatist.

Ultimately Simcox focuses far too much topically on the play of 'Hamlet' when it is widely known that the closest readers and fans of Shakespeare can get to the mind of the dramatist is through his sonnets and poems, of which there is nothing noted in this article.

We will never fully get a grasp on 'who' he was and 'how' he thought. But it's always interesting to see the attempts. From Simcox to Freud, people keep trying…