The Hamlet Project

I am curious about these moments when Hamlet starts to speak of himself in the third person. I can think of at least one other one and suspect there may be more. I wonder if Third person speech is a signal for a Royal self. Certainly the First Person Plural functions that way but there is a similar distance in Third Person Singular. There’s the distancing effect for one – that the Prince can speak of the Prince as a separate entity from himself. He might be more able to make pronouncements, to deliver commendations and formal obligations. This sentence shifts from First to Third and in a way creates a Second self in the Second part. Psychologists analyzing Hamlet must use this line in their theses. I don’t speak Psych – I don’t have a sense of what’s in the DSM – but I think this might be an example of disassociation which might be necessary for all that has happened and is about to.