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Hamlet and Troilus and Cressida
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 November 2021
Hamlet dramatizes a problem that began during Shakespeare’s lifetime, when the scientific revolution was replacing the cognitive basis of the Medieval world, faith (in God and the devil, good and evil, ghosts and witches), with that of modernity, which bases knowledge on doubt: take nothing on faith, believe only what you can prove or disprove with empirical evidence. This paralyzed Hamlet, for he could not find a credible answer to his question, “What should I do?,” since no empirical test can prove what one should do. For him “the time [was] out of joint,” for both shame and guilt ethics had lost their credibility, yet he knew of no credible alternative. The resulting moral nihilism made him unable to organize his behavior, which is incompatible with ongoing life, as the play shows. Troilus and Cressida shows the same problem, which still haunts the modern world.
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