Kingship & Denmark Flashcards
(9 cards)
The admiration for old King Hamlet
‘that fair and warlike form in which the majesty of buried Denmark did sometimes march…This bodes some strange eruption to our state.’
“our valiant Hamlet…this side of the known world esteem’d him”
“So excellent a king, that was to this Hyperion to a satyr”
“Hyperion’s curls, the front of Jove himself, An eye like Mars “
Scene 2, Act 1: Claudius on the State
‘ Claudius says that Fortibras wrongfully thinks ‘our state to be disjoint and out of frame’
Use of collective pronouns shows how CLAUDIUS has assumed his kingship quickly, attempting to assert his control and create a sense of unity in a divided country. This statement is contradicted by the previous scene where it is stated that CLAUDIUS is making the country tirelessly work in preparation for work - shows he LIES & thus doubt is cast on everything he says. Denmark can be seen as ‘disjoint’ as a result of his rule, implying that there is CORRUPTION surrounding him, and that he is TWO-FACED.
Claudius in Act 1, Scene 2 about father & heir
‘You are the most immediate to our throne, and with no less nobility of love than that which dearest father bears his son, do I impart towards you.’ = A statement of political power, false love, disparity between Elizabethan audience’s perception of inheritance and Denmark’s system
Hamlet as rightful heir
‘The great love the general gender bear him’ 4.7
‘He’s loved of the distracted multitudes’ 4.3
The unbreakable link between the king and the country / people
“thinking by our late dear brother’s death our state to be disjoint and out of frame”
“a serpent stung me. So the whole ear of Denmark Is by a forgèd process of my death Rankly abused”
“many many bodies…;ive and feed upon your majesty…spirit upon whose weal depends and rests the lives of many”: R&G
“he’s loved of the distracted multitude, who like not in their judgment, but their eyes”
The importance of the monarchy/king to the country / people
‘His will is not his own, for he himself is subject to his birth…for on his choice depends the sanctity and health of this whole state’
“Th’ expectancy and rose of the fair state…Th’ observed of all observers”
The ability of the king to corrupt the country / people
“whose sore task does not divide the Sunday from the week…make the night-joint labourer with the day”
POLONIUS:” with devotion’s visage And pious action we do sugar o’er The devil himself.”… CLAUDIUS: “Oh, ’tis too true! How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!”
Links between domestic / personal corruption and political corruption
“my offense is rank, it smells to heaven; it hath the primal eldest curse upon’t”
“i am still possest of those effects for which i did the murder - my crown, mine own ambition, and my queen…in the corrupted currents of this world offence’s gilded hand may shove by justice”
“bow stubborn knees”
“Heaven…is thought-sick at the act”
Moments where the wider political world of the play intrudes on the domestic world of the play
“This bodes some strange eruption to our state”
“The chief head of this poste-haste and romage in the land”
“give order that these bodies High on a stage be placèd to the view, And let me speak to th’ yet-unknowing world How these things came about. So shall you hear Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts, Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters, Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause” - turned into a story
Horatio wants to avoid “ more mischance On plots and errors happen.” but already truth being distorted… “Bear Hamlet like a soldier to the stage, For he was likely, had he been put on, To have proved most royally. And, for his passage, The soldiers’ music and the rites of war”
