THEME: Politics and Power Flashcards
CLAUDIUS (ACT 1 SCENE 2)
“Our chiefiest courtier, cousin, and our son.”
POLITICS AND POWER IN HAMLET
Everything is connected in Hamlet, including the welfare of the royal family and the health of the state as a whole. The play’s early scenes explore the sense of anxiety and dread that surrounds the transfer of power from one ruler to the next. Throughout the play, characters draw explicit connections between the moral legitimacy of a ruler and the health of the nation. Denmark is frequently described as a physical body made ill by the moral corruption of Claudius and Gertrude, and many observers interpret the presence of the ghost as a supernatural omen indicating that “[s]something is rotten in the state of Denmark” (I.iv.67). The dead King Hamlet is portrayed as a strong, forthright ruler under whose guard the state was in good health, while Claudius, a wicked politician, has corrupted and compromised Denmark to satisfy his own appetites. At the end of the play, the rise to power of the upright Fortinbras suggests that Denmark will be strengthened once again.
HAMLET (ACT 3 SCENE 4)-QUEEN
“You are the Queen, your husband’s brothers wife.”
HAMLET (ACT 1 SCENE 2)- GARDEN
“this unweeded garden/That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature.”
HAMLET (ACT 1 SCENE 5)- SERPENT
“The serpent that did sting my father’s life now wears the crown.”
CLAUDIUS (ACT 1 SCENE 5)
“Of life, of crown, of Queen, at once dispatched.”
MARCELOUS (ACT 1 SCENE 5)
“Something is rotten in the State of Denmark.”
THE GHOST (ACT 1 SCENE 5)
“The whole ear of Denmark.”
HAMLET (ACT 3 SCENE 4) -SHEETS
“Nay but to live in the rank sweat of an enseamed bed, stewed in corruption, honeying in making love.”
BARNARDO (ACT 1 SCENE 1)
“These bodes some strange eruption from our state.”
HAMLET (ACT 1 SCENE 2)-CLAUDIUS
“He hath killed my King, and whored my mother, popped in between the election and my hopes.”
HAMLET (ACT 1 SCENE 2)-CLAUDIUS
“Here thou incestuous, murderous damned dame.”
