Shakespearean loss: Mourning interminable

TL;DRAbstract

Shakespearean mourners display aggression in lieu of grief, they rely upon introjection and substitution, and they manifestly deny their loss. Denial of death runs throughout the canon; however, it is best epitomized in Antony and Cleopatra and the romances. Shakespeare's most famous mourner, Hamlet, introjects his dead Hyperion father to deny death and contain mourning. Nevertheless, the comedies argue that introjection of a lost object is no substitute for mourning, and in Pericles, introjection even threatens the life of the mourner. If denial represents the final strategy for the containment of grief for Shakespeare, then the conversion of grief into revenge is probably his first. Beginning with the English histories, Shakespeare genders mourning, prescribing socially constructed “masculine” and “feminine” modes of behavior. Men convert their grief into martial revenge; therefore, the first tetralogy is dominated by avenging sons, culminating in the unexpected bereavement of Richar

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