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Why Did Hamlet Delay His Revenge? Finding answers to such questions by computer simulations.
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- Authors
- Issue Date
- 2000
- Citation
- Journal of cognitive science, Vol.1 No.1/2, pp. 67-78
- Abstract
- In his introduction to the Hamlet play, D. Bevington made the
following observation: "Ever since the nineteenth century it has been
fashionable to discover reasons for Hamlet's delaying his revenge"
(Bantam Books edition of The Complete Works of William
Shakespeare, published in 1988, volume 3).
Can the reasons for Hamlet's delay really be discovered? But to
say "discovered" implies some certainty, whereas it seems that we
can only speculate without end about such questions for which, like
all the "what if' questions in college literature classes, no real answer
is possible. After all, are not the answers to all such questions just in
the minds of authors, who like the author of Hamlet may be long
since departed? Nevertheless, educated persons have persisted in
asking such questions as they try to plumb the mind of a writer and
imagine alternative paths a story could have taken. I will argue that
such questions are not only meaningful, but also potentially
answerable with a mathematical precision, given specific assumptions about human nature and the wayan individual makes choices, Le., a
person's "action selection".
- ISSN
- 1598-2327
- Language
- English
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