Hamlet quotes Flashcards
Contextual settings in Hamlet
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
Key themes
Revenge, morality, action vs inaction, madness, disease and decay, power
Structure
Typical revenge tragedy structure - narrowed down to 5 key events
Exposition
Anticipation
Delay
Confrontation
Completion
Key info
Shakespeare
Set in 14th-15th century denmark
Language features
Rhetorical questions, religious imagery, allusions, metaphors, imagery
Marcellus foreshadowing
“Something is rotten in the state of denmark”
Horatio foreshadowing
“This bodes some strange eruption to our state”
Hamlet to Ophelia - rude
“Get thee to a nunnery”
The ghost about his death
“The serpent that did sting thy fathers life/now wears his crown”
Hamlet madness
“Put an antic disposition on”
On entrance must say
“Long live the king”
Hamlet soliloquy
“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.”
Hamlet after killing Polonius
“How now a rat?”
Guards men opening scene
“‘Tis bitter cold and I am sick at heart”
Claudius when he’s praying
“My words fly up, my thoughts remain below. Words without thoughts never to heaven go.”
Hamlet when he was going to kill Claudius
“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”
Hamlets plan for catching the king
“The play’s the thing wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king”
Hamlet to Horatio renaissance
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are ever dreamt of in your philosophy”
Guardsmen rhetorical question
“Who’s there, nay answer me. Stand and unfold yourself!”
Ghost about Gertrude
“Leave her to heaven. And to those thorns in her bosom lodge, to prick and sting her.”
Hamlet about his life and the state of denmark
“‘Tis an unweeded garden/ That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature/ Possess it merely.”
