A Gricean glimpse into Hamlet*

In this paper we investigate the flouting of Grice's maxims in the Hamlet story, through an extensive and in depth discourse analysis. Hamlet is a detective story and a mystery play of a deeper kind in the medieval sense. The unexpected death of Hamlet's father has called him back and, according to the ethics of the age, it is his duty to avenge his father's murder. The revelations of the ghost of Hamlet' s father succeed the struggle between Claudius, who tries to keep his guilt hidden, and Harnlet, who tries to bring it to light. Hamlet assumes madness not to conceal any plan of revenge, but as a means "to be in presence of all, and yet to be hidden, to be intelligible to himself, and a perplexity to others, to be within reach with everyone, and to be himself inaccessible" as Dowden analyses. Ιn this context, we should expect his language to be appropriate. We, therefore, followed an analytical path towards the identification of certain conclusions. We reveal the repeated violation of the co-operative principle expressed in the maxims of Grice. This effort also brings forward the fact that the principles of politeness and tact formulated by Leech are mocked. The other characters cannot understand him and think of him as mad, but the audience can grasp the true meaning of the situation. Our step-by-step discourse analysis can safely lead us to proper judgment of the significance of Hamlet's replies. Further contextual considerations were taken into account to enable us to choose between the possible alternatives. This, in effect, means treating the text as a series of communicative acts. Our analysis of Hamlet's utterances reveals a remarkable example of violating the maxims as a means to a cause. Shakespeare certainly knew how to master that