Hamlet 1:2 Flashcards
‘He remains silent… Echoing… but his state…’
‘[Hamlet] remains silent on stage, unacknowledged until line 64. Echoing the Ghost in the scene before, he is a figure of mystery, but his state of mourning is signalled by his black clothing’ - SD
‘The memory be…’
‘the memory be green’ - Claudius/King
- the death of Hamlet sr. is fresh
key nature of the King’s soliloquy 1:2
- a lot of justifying surrounding the incest stuff
- overly formal, performative
- forced agreeing (‘Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone with this affair along. For all, our thanks’)
- dismissive (‘so much for him’)
- comes across more scheming, less bold, manipulative (talks in statements, see “forced agreeing)
‘our sometime…’
‘our sometime sister, now our queen’ - King
- daring people to comment on the incest
- shocks audience
‘with mirth in…’
‘with mirth in funeral, and with dirge in marriage’ - King
- assonance (‘mirth’ ‘dirge’)
- opposing double
‘Your better…’
‘Your better wisdoms which have freely gone with this affair along. For all, our thanks’ - king
- statements, forced to agree, challenging them
how does the King talk about Fortinbras/F’s views of Denmark
- ‘weak supposal of our worth’
- ‘our state to be disjoint and out of frame’
- ‘hath not fail’d to pester us with message/importing the surrender of those lands’
- thinks they’re not strong cos of king’s death
- body politic, head vs body
stage directions for Hamlet in 1:2
‘He remains silent on stage, unacknowledged until line 64. Echoing the Ghost in the scene before, he is a figure of mystery, but his state of mourning is signalled by his black clothing’ - SD
- even though period of mourning is over he still wears black
body politic
the people of a nation, state, or society considered collectively as an organized group of citizens
How is the king of Norway described?
- Fortinbras’ Uncle
- ‘impotent and bed-rid’
Laertes asks to return to france
‘Your leave and favour to return to France’ ‘Your gracious leave and pardon’
‘But now, my cousin…’
‘But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son’ - King
- only been a couple of months
Hamlet’s first line
- is an aside (doesn’t want to be part of the court)
- is a dig at the King calling him ‘my cousin’ and ‘my son’
- ‘A little more than kin, and less than kind’ - Hamlet
‘cast thy…’
‘cast thy nighted colour off’ - Queen
- telling Hamlet to stop mourning and take off the black clothes
hamlet’s request of the King
‘For your intent In going back to school in Wittenburg’ - King
- just like Laertes wants yet C won’t let him
‘seems, Madam…’
‘Seems, Madam! Nay, it is; I know not seems.’ - Hamlet
- offended by the suggestion that his mourning is put on in some way
‘I have that within…’
‘I have that within that passes show’ - Hamlet
- not just how he dresses and acts
- is in mourning, (queen isn’t?)
'’Tis sweet and… To give… your father…’
'’Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet, To give these mourning duties to your father; But you must know your father lost a father; that father lost his’ - King to Hamlet
- patronising
- suggests the grief and mourning is unnecessary
- “get over it this is nothing knew”
how does the King describe Hamlet’s grief?
'’tis unmanly grief’
‘and think of us…’
‘and think of us As of a father’ - King to Hamlet
- royal ‘We’
- attempting to replace Hamlet Sr already
‘you are the most…’
‘you are the most immediate to our throne’ - King to Hamlet
- why didn’t Hamlet become king after his dad’s death
- did claudius steal the crown or was Hamlet too young/inexperienced to take it?
‘And with no less…’
‘And with no less nobility of love Than that which dearest father bears his son Do I impart toward you’ - King to hamlet
- again, attempting to replace Hamlet’s father (‘and think of us as of a father’)
‘It is most…’
‘It is most retrograde to our desire’ - King to Hamlet at request to return to school in Germany
‘Our chiefest…’
‘Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son’ - King to Hamlet
‘Let not thy…’
‘Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet’ - Queen to Hamlet
- private vs public (her role as queen conflicts with her role as a mother)
- this is a display of the private (Hamlet responds in a public persona however)
‘I shall in all…’
‘I shall in all my best obey you, madam’ - H to queen
- deference
- remains in a public form (‘madam’) despite the Queen’s use of private ‘mother’
‘This gentle and…’
‘This gentle and unforc’d accord of Hamlet’ - King
- heavy suggestion again
‘O, that this…’
‘O, that this too too solid flesh would melt, Thaw, and resolve into a dew!’ - Hamlet
- emotional
- the substantial become insubstantial
- something impossible
Hamlet’s mental state in his first soliloquy
- in deep pain, lowest point (a walking disaster not recognisable as the prince)
- both about his father’s death and his mother’s marriage
- his language shows his distress
- existential angst
‘Or that the Everlasting…’
‘Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d his canon ‘gainst self-slaughter!’ - H
- “if only God wasn’t against suicide”
- would have shocked the elizabethan audience (society very against suicide due to strong religion)
'’tis an unweeded…’
'’tis an unweeded garden’ - H
- order and disorder
- Elizabethan gardens context
- talking about the current situation/events
‘canon’
divine law
Elizabethan gardens context
- '’tis an unweeded garden’ - H
- symmetrical, full of mathematical shapes
- planned and controlled
- ‘unweeded garden’ therefore implies chaos and disorder to the elizabethan audience
Hamlet’s fixation on time in his first soliloquy
‘But two months dead! Nay, not so much, not two’
‘within a month’
‘a little month’
‘within a month’ for a second time
- distressed by how quick his mother married
how does Hamlet present his mother and father’s relationship?
- a marriage of love
- ‘Hyperion’ - divinity, God of heavenly light
- ‘so loving to my mother, That he might not beteem the winds of heaven Visit her face too roughly.’
- H Sr is glorified and eulogised, hyperbole
how does Hamlet present his mother and uncle’s relationship?
- a marriage of sex
- ‘a satyr’ vs H sr’s ‘Hyperion’ - ‘satyr’ is claudius (sexual)
- ‘incestuous sheets’
religious context (Hamlet’s soliloquy)
- Hamlet is historical fiction, so a commentary on Elizabethan context
- Hamlet is effectively a humanist in a medieval setting
- Catholic culture in the time of Hamlet
- ‘the Everlasting had not fix’d his canon ‘gainst self-slaughter!’
- ‘O God! God!’
- ‘Heaven and Earth’
‘Frailty, thy…’
‘Frailty, thy name is woman!’ - Hamlet
- misogynistic
- not just Getrude/Queen (his mother) but all women
- Ophelia
reasons G might have married Claudius
- motherly love (ensure Hamlet’s fate)
- power/safety
- stability for the state
‘A little month or…’
‘A little month or ere those shoes were old with which she followed my poor father’s body […] married with my uncle’ - Hamlet about his mother
- “before the shoes she wore to his father’s funeral were old she was married”
- another comment on the timeframe of funeral to wedding
‘a beast that…’
‘a beast that wants discourse of reason would have mourn’d longer’ - Hamlet in his soliloquy
- “a beast without rational thought would have mourned longer than she did”
‘Within a month, ere yet…’
‘Within a month, ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears had left the flushing in her galled eyes, she married’ - Hamlet
- “within a month, before her tears over her husband had dried, she was married”
‘O, most wicked…’
‘O, most wicked speed, to post with such dexterity to incestuous sheets!’ - Hamlet
- ‘incestuous sheets’ - transferred epithet
transferred epithet
when the epithet (quality or characteristic: ‘incestuous’) is moved from the real subject (the Queen) to another associated one (the ‘sheets’)
‘But break…’
‘But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.’
social relationship between Horatio and Hamlet
- Hamlet is Horatio’s social superior despite the seemingly close relationship and bond of trust
- Hamlet calls Horatio ‘my good friend’ whilst Horatio calls him ‘my lord’
‘We’ll teach you to…’
‘We’ll teach you to drink deep ere you depart’ - Hamlet to Horatio
- a comment that the Danes drink too much (not impressed with the social state in court)
‘Indeed…’
‘Indeed, my lord, it followed hard upon.’ - Horatio to Hamlet about the wedding
- its not just Hamlet who think it was fast
how does Horatio break the news of his father’s ghost to Hamlet?
- ‘My lord, I think I saw him yester-night’
- ‘each word made true and good’ (the watchmen weren’t lying)
‘My lord, I think…’
‘My lord, I think I saw him yester-night’ - Horatio to Hamlet
‘A figure like…’
‘A figure like your father, armed at point exactly, cap-a-pe’ - Horatio to Hamlet
- fully armed, from head to toe (‘cap-a-pe’)
‘Stand dumb…’
‘Stand dumb and speak not to him’ - Horatio to Hamlet
- the guards didn’t speak to the ghost
‘This to me in…’
‘This to me in dreadful secrecy impart they did; And I with them the third night kept the watch […] each word made true and good’ - Horatio to Hamlet
- confirming the sighting of his father was real
‘The apparition…’
‘The apparition comes. I knew your father; these hands are not more like’ - Horatio to Hamlet
- reliable
- the ghost was definitely his father
‘But answer…’
‘But answer made it none’ - Horatio
- the ghost did not speak
- important to set the scene when it does reply to Hamlet later
‘Let it be tenable…’
‘Let it be tenable in your silence still’ - Hamlet to guards and Horatio
- do not speak of the ghost
‘All is…’
‘All is not well.’ - Hamlet at the end of 1:2 after finding out about the ghost of his father
