Abstract
Lacan (1958-59) defined Hamlet’s tragedy as the tragedy of desire, seeing the plot as some kind of bird trap, in which man’s desire would be essentially entangled. The psychoanalyst did not come to Hamlet by chance; the character imposed himself through the echoes of a “to be and not to be” from the phallus Lacan collected from Ella Sharpe’s patient, which led him to one of Freud’s key themes concerning how the position of desire is organized, that is, the coordinates articulated by Freud in the Interpretation of Dreams, between Hamlet, Oedipus, and castration. This study presents the points and counterpoints of Hamlet’s interpretation by Freud and Lacan.
Keywords:
psychoanalytic clinic; psychoanalysis and literature; psychoanalytic interpretation