Hamlet time period
1600’s
Hamlet’s hesitation in soliloquy
3
“That would be scanned”
”Think too precisely on the event”
“three parts coward”
character foil in revenge & vengenancy
Laertes’ quotes as a character foil
1
”Let come what comes, only I’ll be revenged most thoroughly for my father”
decisive, impetuous, impulsive, rash
Appearance vs reality
2
“That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain” - Hamlet
”That serpent that did sting thy father’s life/ Now wears his crown” - Ghost
the supernatural (dramatic) and dramatic irony (literary)
Motif of corruption & decay
4
“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” - Marcellus
”Solid flesh would melt”
”Unweeded garden”
”Things rank and gross in nature”
Symbolism of death and skulls
1
“Alas poor Yorick! I knew him/ Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy … Where be your gibes now?/ your gambols, your songs, your flashes of merriment”
Allusion reflecting to symbol of death
1
“Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay,/ Might stop a hole, to keep the wind away.”
also rhyming couplets
Claudius’ Duplicitous nature
2
“Oh my offence is rank, it smells to heaven… Pray can I not,/ Though inclination be as sharp as will” - soliloquy
”My words fly up, my thoughts remain below./ Words without thoughts never to heaven go” - rhyming couplet
duplicitous nature
Dramatic Irony of supernatural
2
“I am thy father’s spirit”
”The serpent that did sting thy father’s life/ Now wears his crown”
Class divide
Prose: “Is she buried in Christian burial, when she willfully seeks/ her own salvation” - Gravedigger
Verse: “Has this fellow no feeling of his business? A sings in/ grave-making.” - Hamlet
Resolution
2
“Oh, I die, Horatio”
“[King dies]”
