HAMLET: Useful Extra Quotes

Question 1

Laertes:
- “That drop of blood”
- “I dare damnation”

Answer 1

Laertes as Hamlet’s double:
- L as perfect revenger:
- Straightforward, classically violent language

Question 2

Emptiness
(Horatio) “Speak to me”

Answer 2

-> Repeated - breaks iambic pentameter, emphasising silence/emptiness of words/thought

Question 3

Hamlet
1. “To put an antic disposition on”
2. “The king is a thing - … of nothing”

Answer 3

1. Irrational - pretend to be mad? Question whether he’s just actually mad/been mad all along:
   -> Melancholy as a form of madness
   - Court can’t understand this/grief: (POLONIUS) “This is the very ecstasy of love”
2. Over-line rhyme - riddle like, showing “words, words, words” madness
   -> Yet logic! Vacancy/superficiality of authority - all exterior? Hidden corruption
   - Body Politic
   - Elizabethan: The madman tells the truth!