Reading Hamlet with Lacan: The Joint of Symptoms, Desire and Time

Résumé En

This paper looks at Jacques Lacan’s reading of Hamlet and the implications of his demonstrationon his overall clinical approach to neurosis and desire. There is no denying that writing a chapteron Hamlet is an intimidating enterprise, unlikely to succeed in giving an exhaustive overview of theplay, especially if we are to believe Shakespearean scholars when they say it is the most commentedplay in the English language (Cottegnies and Venet: 1,417). This is acknowledged by Lacan himself,as can be seen in his recurrent references to other commentators in and out of the psychoanalyticfield (Lacan: 300)1, and his knowledge of the symbolic status the role of Hamlet gives to any actorwho is given to play it on stage, especially in the UK (Lacan: 305). However, what Lacan stressesmost throughout his lectures (called ‘classes’ by Bruce Fink) on the play is the work done by Freudand Ella Sharpe.