The motif of madness is very common in Shakespeare’s plays. Playful and light in comedies, painful and deadly in tragedies, it is always enlightening and strikingly clairvoyant. It used to be treated as possession, disease or legitimate punishment throughout history. In Renaissance, it was observed through the theory of humours, mainly ascribing melancholy to young, educated men and hysteria to young ladies or widows. Love is often the cause, besides disappointment, suffering and sin. Crime is also associated with it, be it as cause or consequence, as something that drives the perpetrator into madness or as the outcome of perturbed mind. This paper deals with characters from the four great tragedies: Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear and Othello. They all have a certain predisposition to madness, exacerbated by the adverse circumstances. Male characters usually regain sanity, having gone through painful recognition and self-examination. Female characters, once insane, never recover, so their common end is death – suicide. But the secrets of human soul are universal and not gender-limited, that is what Shakespeare reveals to us and that is what makes him timeless. Some Shakespearean characters have been case studies and material for proving theories in the twentieth century. Psychology and, especially psychoanalysis, on the other hand, can help Shakespeare scholars with a holostic approach, in a comprehensive analysis and deconstruction of many aspects and aparts that the bard built, seemingly at random, but probably very meticulously, putting them exactly where they belong. Subconsciousness is an important factor and source of many unresolved conflicts, which is why psychoanalysts provide us with a powerful tool to explain what is not visible „clinically“, on the face value. Madness in Shakespeare’s oeuvre is never an issue per se, but it is a very frequent motif. The image of madness is give through actions of maddened characters, be their madness real or feigned, and through comments of other characters, witnesses and interpreters. There are basically three forms of madness occuring here: madness of characters who suffer heavy blows, losses and disappointment; feigned madness for the sake of disguise, drawing attention precisely to avert it from the substance, or to cover the traces; and, finally, it is what the observers see and deem as madness, which is not necessarily so. Some images of madness are poetically very effective and touching. If Shakespeare attached great importance to catharsis as an important reason why people went to theatre, besides entertainment, laughter and fight, then he certainly managed to create cathartic scenes. Besides poetic, there is also an important dramaturgical function of madness, and the special category is the form of madness, or folly, communicating life wisdom or truth. Shakespeare’s contemporary Armin forged a blendind foolosopher, and Erasmus dedicated his Praise to Folly. Loss of reason is almost always loss of life too, and this is why it is such a frequent motif in tragic stories. The feeling of grief, loss, mourning, that is something that overwhelms us while watching once might monarchs, chaste girls, great warriors or noble minds „overthrown“, saying vulgar words, broken sentences, hollering hysterically or threatening powerlessly. Those who manage to get over madness, return empowered by this horrible experience, like after clinical death. Those who don’t, find the only salvation in death. The very word „madness“ is very frequent in Shakespeare’s plays, with rich semantic range, denotating mental disorder, ecstasis, foolish behaviour, rage and happiness. Not for nothing did Shakespeare call it „antic disposition“ in Hamlet’s cases, because it was very present in ancient tragedies: Ajax, Cassandra, Philoctete, Orestes, Phaedra, Oedipus; they all have fits of madness. Madness is related to several deities, and Dionysus is the god of tragedy. To ancient Greeks, Shakespeare, Racine Shakespeare and Nietzche, the source of madness was in things „sad to know“. Collin McGinn, a British philosopher, analyses Shakespeare’s psychologism and wonders to what extent Shakespeare’s naturalism was proto-psychology. His interest in human soul and mind makes his plays „psychodramas2“. While Freud was drawing Newtonian laws regulating human mind, making all men liable to Oedipal complex and suppression of sexual desire, which subsequently makes this repression manifest, to Shakespeare every human being was special, not variation of a type. He was a moral psychologist, attaching values to every psychological portrait. Motiv ludila veoma je čest u Šekspirovim tragedijama. Razigrano i šaljivo u komedijama, bolno i smrtonosno u tragedijama, ludilo uvek donosi neki uvid i spoznaju. Nekada je ludilo tretirano kao opsednutost, bolest ili pravedna kazna. U renesansi je posmatrano kroz teoriju o ćudima, uglavnom pripisujući melanholiju obrazovanim mladićima, a histeriju mladim ženama. Uzrok je, pored razočaranja, patnje i sagrešenja, često i ljubav. Zločin se često vezuje za ludilo, bilo kao uzrok ili kao posledica. Ovaj rad bavi se motivom ludila u četiri veliki tragedije Viljema Šekspira: Hamlet, Makbet, Kralj Lir i Otelo. Analizira ludilo glavnih junaka koji su, uglavnom, predisponirani za ludilo, što ekskalira u nepovoljnim okolnostima. Muški likovi obično povrate razum, dok žene obično završe svoj život tragično, nikada se ne oporavivši. Ali, tajne ljudske duše su univerzalne i nisu rodno ograničene, što nam i Šekspir potvrđuje. Ova disertacija pokušaj je da se ovim složenim pitanjima pozabavi multidisciplinarno – pre svega kao književno istraživanje, ali obimno potpomognuto psihologijom i psihoanalizom. Počinje pregledom motiva ludila u starogrčkim dramama, kao i antičkim stavovima o ludilu uopšte. Zatim, tu su shvatanja i tumačenja srednjeg veka, renesanse, klasicizma i modernog doba, od religije do nauke. Neki Šekspirovi tragični junaci bili su prave studije slučaja i materijal za dokazivanje teorija u dvadesetom veku. Psihologija i, posebno, psihoanaliza, s druge strane, mogu da pomognu proučavaocima Šekspirovih dela u holističkom pristupu, u sveobuhvatnoj analizi i dekonstrukciji mnogih aspekata i delova koje je bard naizgled stihijski, a verovatno brižljivo gradio i postavljao baš tu gde jesu. Podsvest je bitan faktor i izvor mnogih postupaka, problema ili nerazrešenih konflikata, i zato nam psihoanalitičari daju moćno pomagalo da objasnimo ono što nije vidljivo „golim okom“, odnosno posmatranjem površine. Ludilo u Šekspirovom opusu nikada nije tema samo po sebi, ali jeste veoma čest motiv. Slika ludila data je kroz ponašanje aktera, autentično ili odglumljeno, i kroz komentare ostalih junaka, očevidaca i tumača. Postoje, uslovno rečeno, tri vida u kojima se ono prikazuje: ludilo junaka koji pretrpe teške udarce, gubitke i razočaranja; simulirano ludilo koje ima svrhu mimikrije, privlačenje pažnje upravo da bi se ona odvratila od suštine, ili da se zavara trag i, na kraju, ono što posmatrači vide i dožive kao ludilo, a što možda i ne zaslužuje takvu odrednicu. Neke scene ludila su poetski veoma efektne, dirljive slike. Ako je i Šekspir držao do katarze kao važnog razloga što ljudi odlaze u pozorište, pored zabave, smeha i dobre borbe, onda je zasigurno uspeo da stvori katarzične scene. Pored pesničke, ludilo ima i bitnu dramaturšku funkciju, a posebnu „kategoriju“ čine one forme ludila, ili ludosti, u kojima se saopštavaju životne mudrosti i istine. Šekspirov savremenik Armin skovao je izraz foolosopher, a Erazmo Roterdamski je ludosti posvetio svoju Pohvalu. Gubitak razuma gotovo da je i gubitak života i zato je toliko čest motiv u tragičnim pričama. Osećanje tuge, gubitka, žaljenja, to je nešto što nas obuzme dok gledamo nekada moćne vladare, čedne i krotke devojke, velike vojskovođe ili uzvišene umove u koje se nadala cela nacija, kako padaju na dno, govore vulgarne i nepovezane rečenice, histerično urlaju ili nemoćno prete. Oni koji uspeju da pobede ludilo, vraćaju se osnaženi tim strašnim iskustvom i obogaćeni mudrošću, kao posle kliničke smrti. Oni koji to ne uspeju, jedini spas pronađu u smrti. Sama reč „ludilo“ kod Šekspira je veoma česta i bogatog je semantičkog spektra, te označava mentalni poremećaj, ekstazu, budalasto ponašanje, gnev i veselost. Nije slučajno što Šekspir to ludilo u Hamletovom slučaju naziva „antic disposition“, jer u antičkim tragedijama ovaj motiv je veoma prisutan: Ajaks, Kasandra, Filoktet, Orest, Fedra, Edip; svi oni imaju napade ludila. Ludilo se povezuje sa više božanstava starogrčkog sveta, a Dionis je bog tragedije. I kod starih Grka, i kod Rasina, Šekspira, Ničea, ludilo potiče od stvari koje je „tužno znati“. Britanski filozof Kolin Megin analizira Šekspirov psihologizam i pita se do koje mere je Šekspirov naturalizam, dakle posmatranje i opisivanje pojava koje vidi – protopsihologija. Njegovo zanimanje za ljudsku dušu i um njegove drame čini „psihodramama1“. Dok Frojd njutnovski izvodi zakone koji regulišu ljudski um i po kojima su svi muškarci podložni Edipovom kompleksu i potiskivanju seksualne želje, što dovodi do kasnije manifestacije te represije, za Šekspira je svako ljudsko biće posebno, original a ne varijacija na prototip. On je moralni psiholog, jer uz svaki psihološki portret idu i etičke vrednosti koje određuju karakter.