Hamlet themes and qoutes Flashcards
what can you talk about Hamlets reason to delay his revenge?
- guilt
- religious reasons
- too scared to
what critic
- inaction
- moral corruption
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge
“sensitive man paralyzed into inaction by the sheer capacity for thought”
what quote
- act 2 scene 2
- hamlet feeling weak about his inaction
- religious aspects
“why what an ass am I: this is the most brave, that I, the son of a dear murdered, prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell, must like a whore unpack my hear with words
what happens when Hamlet does decide to take action
- very rash decisions such as the death of Polonious
- Hamlet finally rlersies that nothing is going to happen if he keeps delelying it
“how all occasion do inform agaisnt me/ and spur my dull revenge” act four scene four
what to say on theme of moral corruption - language used
- hamlet consantly uses words to descrbing rotting and desise which can be linked with the moral ocrruption that is happerning inside the palace
“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.” (Act 1, Scene 4)
what can you tell me about body politics
body politics is something that was commonily thought about in Elizabethan era
its about how the mental and health state of the monarch and the courts affects the state of the public and the country they are ruling
how does body politics relate to Hamlet
this relates to hamlet because Claudius is the moral corruption of Denmark and needs to be cleansed of him in order for the country to be well again, maybe that’s why its important for Fortinbras to come in at the end
hamlet is obsessed with corruption, explain
‘tis an unweeded garden
That grows to seed, things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely.
(Act 1, Scene 2)
its a metaphor for the royal court ,he sees it happening in the kingdom and knows it needs to be dealt with, he belives the source is his uncle
this imagery follows closely with play as Hamlet tries to cleanse the court of the rot but because he is corrupted as well the only way for it to be cleansed was for hamlet to die too.
the power of theatre - theme
- hamlet is very aware that he is being watched and pouts on a act, which plays on the fact that he does it to avoid action
performance, the play questions how an individual shows themselves to the world. Do we act as our true
self or do we put on a face for an audience?
how doescharcters t play with the diea that his is putting on a performance
play. Hamlet is aware almost
immediately that he, a scholar and Humanist, has been cast in the role of a tragic revenger, a role he feels unfit
to play – “O cursed spite, that ever I was born to set it right”, (Act 1, Scene 5
he chooses to alter his ‘mask’ and “put an antic disposition on” (Act 1, Scene 5)
claduius pretneds to be a kidn and caring king
As Hamlet says about him, “That one
may smile and smile and be a villain” (Act 1, Scene 5).
- A.W Schlegel
- religion
- moral corruption
- madness
- supernatural
“Hamlet has no firm belief either in himself or in anything else: from expressions of religious confidence he passes over skeptics doubt “
- Herman Ulrici
- moral corruption
- madness
- religion
Regard for the eternal salvation of his soul …. to halt and consider
- stepéphane Mallarme
- moral corruption
- antic disposition
- revenge
The black presence of this doubter causes the poison
- Middleton Murray
- religion
- guilt
- moral corruption
We notice the genealogy from the miracle plays with thei settings of heaven, hell, purgatory
