A.C. Bradley notes that Shakespeare often uses prose to indicate an abnormal state of mind.
Michel Foucault explains, “Language is the first and last structure of madness, its constituent form; on language are based all the cycles in which madness articulates its nature. That the essence of madness can be ultimately defined in the simple structure of a discourse does not reduce it to a purely psychological nature, but gives it a hold over the totality of soul and body; such discourse is both the silent language by which the mind speaks to itself in the truth proper to it, and the visible articulation in the movements of the body.”(Madness and Civilisation)
Instead of representing madness through its physical symptoms, or through some stereotyped behaviour, Shakespeare (perhaps anticipating Foucault) uses a peculiar language to dramatize insanity. This language may be in the form of prose or verse, but it is always characterized by fragmentation, obsession and