Hamlet quotes

Question 1

Contextual settings in Hamlet

Answer 1

Protestant reformation
- links to the theme of revenge
- Where people based their beliefs hugely on religion
- Religious imagery, and direction of morals
Elizabethan era
- links to the theme of disease + decay
- when Queen Elizabeth died
- Tension in Hamlet monarchy
Renaissance era
- links to the theme of action vs inaction
- political, social, economical and cultural ‘rebirth’, questioning Christian morals
- Hamlet renaissance man

Question 2

Key themes

Answer 2

Revenge, morality, action vs inaction, madness, disease and decay, power

Question 3

Structure

Answer 3

Typical revenge tragedy structure - narrowed down to 5 key events
Exposition
Anticipation
Delay
Confrontation
Completion

Question 4

Key info

Answer 4

Shakespeare
Set in 14th-15th century denmark

Question 5

Language features

Answer 5

Rhetorical questions, religious imagery, allusions, metaphors, imagery

Question 6

Marcellus foreshadowing

Answer 6

“Something is rotten in the state of denmark”

Question 7

Horatio foreshadowing

Answer 7

“This bodes some strange eruption to our state”

Question 8

Hamlet to Ophelia - rude

Answer 8

“Get thee to a nunnery”

Question 9

The ghost about his death

Answer 9

“The serpent that did sting thy fathers life/now wears his crown”

Question 10

Hamlet madness

Answer 10

“Put an antic disposition on”

Question 11

On entrance must say

Answer 11

“Long live the king”

Question 12

Hamlet soliloquy

Answer 12

“To be or not to be, that is the question. Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them.”

Question 13

Hamlet after killing Polonius

Answer 13

“How now a rat?”

Question 14

Guards men opening scene

Answer 14

“‘Tis bitter cold and I am sick at heart”

Question 15

Claudius when he’s praying

Answer 15

“My words fly up, my thoughts remain below. Words without thoughts never to heaven go.”

Question 16

Hamlet when he was going to kill Claudius

Answer 16

“And now I’ll do it. And so he goes to heaven; And so I am revenged… O this is hire and salary, not revenge”

Question 17

Hamlets plan for catching the king

Answer 17

“The play’s the thing wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king”

Question 18

Hamlet to Horatio renaissance

Answer 18

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are ever dreamt of in your philosophy”

Question 19

Guardsmen rhetorical question

Answer 19

“Who’s there, nay answer me. Stand and unfold yourself!”

Question 20

Ghost about Gertrude

Answer 20

“Leave her to heaven. And to those thorns in her bosom lodge, to prick and sting her.”

Question 21

Hamlet about his life and the state of denmark

Answer 21

“‘Tis an unweeded garden/ That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature/ Possess it merely.”