'Tis a consummation / Devoutly to be wished. Hamlet’s madness. ... his behavior will demonstrate once and for all whether or not his love for Ophelia has caused his "affliction" of melancholy and madness. GradeSaver, 30 August 2009 Web. Important quotes by Hamlet in Hamlet. William Shakespeare's Hamlet follows the young prince Hamlet home to Denmark to attend his father's funeral. "Hamlet Quotes and Analysis". This exchange seems to capture in its essence the changed Hamlet that we see in Act Five scene two. Beloved of refrigerator magnet and bumper sticker companies everywhere, Polonius' advice to Laertes puts the critic in a double bind. Hamlet's first soliloquy finds him more melancholic, more desperate, than at any other point in the play. From the opening of the play Hamlet has been marked as a melancholy man. / This above all, to thine own self be true, / And it must follow as the night the day / Thou canst not then be false to any man. Others follow the first folio and put "solid flesh." Of course, as always, he is not sure why this is the case (and nor are we, not really), but he shows the uncertain searching of modern subjectivity in his attempt to formulate this very confusion. The speech, while short, contains several rich paradoxes. And all for nothing, / For Hecuba! How all occasions do inform against me, / And spur my dull revenge! If you’re not enrolled on the course it’s still possible to read her online article Melancholy, medicine and the Arts which was published in The Lancet Vol 372 issue 9642, in 2008. Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it as many of our players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Horatio warns Hamlet that the Ghost “might deprive your sovereignty of reason/And draw you into madness” (I.iv.). Polonius is, of course, the quintessential false man. The Question and Answer section for Hamlet is a great Hamlet Quotes: Madness | SparkNotes. 4, and the ghost challenges Hamlet to seek vengeance against Claudius since he killed King Hamlet, Hamlet has a new source for his depression. What if this cursed hand / Were thicker than itself with brother's blood, / Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens / To wash it white as snow? resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel. I will forestall their repair hither, and say you are not fit. Make her laugh at that. Ay, there's the rub. Although sometimes his rhetoric in the ensuing Acts resonates with this first declaration of misery, Hamlet's sincerity becomes much more difficult to judge once he has received his supernatural charge. ALL We do, my lord. Death was much more familiar to them than it is to us. However, he has these phases between depression and mania which allow him to take action in killing the king. Hamlet reveals that he is contemplating suicide and wishes that his "flesh" would "melt." Yep, he's serious. Hamlet Quotes | Shmoop JavaScript seems to be disabled in your browser. Nevertheless, despite our modern dreams of scientific immortality, the universal truth of this final destination still holds. That within which passes show. Hamlet's Melancholy: Hamlet is one of English author William Shakespeare's most famous tragedies. The Ghost itself instructs Hamlet: “Taint not thy mind” (I.v.). Apparently this had not been his previous character, for the king has spoken of it as "Hamlet's transformation." After Hamlet sees the ghost of his father in Act 1, sc. A beast, no more. If Hamlet does not really go mad under his unparalleled griefs and burdens it is because under all circumstances his grim and tragic humor holds evenly the balance of his mind. Quotes related to Plotting, spying, and stratagems within Hamlet. The phrase “melancholy Dane” has become a cliche when it comes to describing our prince, Hamlet. For instance, in Hamlet's "To be Or Not To Be" soliloquy, perhaps one of the most well known quotes in the English language, Hamlet actually debates suicide. This sort of reminder was quite common in the Renaissance, with its plagues and its widespread starvation. / My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent, / And like a man to double business bound, / I stand in pause where I shall first begin, / And both neglect. The "woman" he specifically refers to is … He is, briefly at least, capable of looking into his soul with the same questioning, searching self-examination that Hamlet displays elsewhere. I have of late -- but wherefore I know not -- lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition, that this goodly frame the earth seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy the air, look you, this brave o'er-hanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why it appeareth nothing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors. Melancholy Quotes. He at once places his species in a standard Renaissance cosmos, rising hierarchically from the earth to the heavens, and denies this hierarchy. If it be not to come, it will be now. I shall i… “To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer. Hamlet Critical Quotes Flashcards Preview ... Harold Bloom on Hamlet (3) Death, Melancholy, Character "I set aside the prevalent judgment that the deepest cause of his melancholia is his mourning for the dead father and his outrage at his mother's sexuality," / Who calls me villain, breaks my pate across, / Plucks off my beard and blows it in my face, / Tweaks me by the nose, gives me the lie i'th'throat / As deep as to the lungs? Let's further think of this, 204-205). On the other, the speech must be read in context, and when done so it becomes deeply ironic. If he is thinking about suicide, he is most definitely contemplating it in the abstract, as a topic of interest more than as an actual option for his own life. Not affiliated with Harvard College. Hamlet's Melancholy Essay Example...Excess: Hamlet’s Melancholy June 15th, 2010 Word Count: 1287 In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the tragic hero Prince Hamlet of Denmark, returns home after the death of his father, King Hamlet. In what manner does he respond to their solicitations? Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar. Alas, poor Yorick! Many have taken the speech to be a contemplation of suicide. In it we finally learn for certain that Claudius is guilty of the murder charged to him. And yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust? (Hamlet does have a kind of passion after all -- not for revenge, but for expanding upon the lust and depravity of Claudius and Gertrude.) Already, he has outgrown the generic task before him, to kill his uncle, and has used the occasion of revenge and madness to explore much larger questions about the place of humanity in the universe. Get free homework help on William Shakespeare's Hamlet: play summary, scene summary and analysis and original text, quotes, essays, character analysis, and filmography courtesy of CliffsNotes. His despair, sorrow, anger and inner peace are all justifiable emotions for this troubled character. And this speech in particular, with its smug certainties, serves as a stark contrast to Hamlet's searching, questioning, endless attempts at self-exploration. Oh, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven; / It hath the primal eldest curse upon't, / A brother's murder. Sanity is humor.\" 1 The same eminent critic asserts that, \"If the quality of humor is important in c… O God, God, How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable. In both cases, though, Hamlet sees men who have petty or fictional objects, and who nevertheless rise to great things; whereas he, with his very palpable reasons for action and feeling, cannot manage to summon any such accomplishment. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know now how oft. Hamlet is Shakespeare’s most famous melancholic, memorably coming face to face with the reality of mortality when holding Yorick’s skull. With Hecuba, the emphasis is on feeling; with Fortinbras, the emphasis is on honor. many strong yet justified emotions. To take one example, the eighteenth-century critic Samuel Johnson suggested that the soliloquy is more generally about death, and about the risk of death in a moment of decisive action, than about suicide. What quotes can show that he is depressed? We defy augury. If we simply stop existing, certainly the risk is worth the comfort of oblivion. Untermacher, John. In the beginning, his motives and feelings are clear in a way that they never are after his encounter with the ghost. I knew him, Horatio -- a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. This, Hamlet's final soliloquy, is much like "O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I." Some critics have decided that the speech is not about suicide at all. He comes upon Claudius in his attempt to pray and decides not to murder him for fear that his soul, being in a state of repentance, might ascend to heaven. "To be or not to be" -- that is, "to live or to kill myself." His moods become more manic, his language more explosive and punning, and his motivation becomes infinitely mysterious. "Am I a coward? [...] Neither a borrower nor a lender be, / For loan oft loses both itself and friend, / And borrowing dulls th' edge of husbandry. This is the only soliloquy in Hamlet that does not belong to the title character. This change in him was brought about by brooding on the events that had just happened, and had been not only a mental but especially a moral reaction. Polonius mouths words without meaning them. O God, God, / How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable / Seem to me all the uses of this world! Hamlet's speech is very carefully constructed, with reason prevailing for the first long stretch of rhetoric until Hamlet's passion ironically overwhelms him and he explodes, "Fie upon't! Miller, W.C. ed. Thus Hamlet closes the play in a quiet and mysterious counter-poise with fate. I'd be surprised and a little angry at mother, just like Hamlet was. Hamlet states to Horatio “as I perchance hereafter shall think meet/ To put an antic disposition on” in order to deceive the king that he is insane (Act I, Scene V, Line 190). On the other, the speech must be read in context, and when done so it becomes deeply ironic. On the one hand, there is no denying that his advice is often sound, if generally cliched and obvious, and very memorably expressed. The emphasis is either on the flesh's innate depravity or on its frustrating solidity. Hamlet. All the world, at this point, seems to exist within a greater order -- perhaps an unknowable order, but an order nonetheless. To die, to sleep -- / No more. Quoth she, before you tumbled me,/ You promised me to wed. 2.2, Hamlet: perhaps,/ Out of my weakness and my melancholy,/. (I.v.) HORATIO As I do live, my honored lord, ’tis true. ALL Armed, my lord. Now he has almost a zen-like acceptance of things as they are. If your mind dislike anything, obey it. By the way, the first line of this speech reads differently in different editions. The speech's most significant moment, in terms of aesthetic theory, is the passage that begins, "for anything so o'erdone is from the purpose of playing." But if, in the hereafter, we retain our minds, our sensibilities, we must pause before leaping into so uncertain, so potentially horrific a fate. 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. Not a whit. Not one now to mock your own grinning? His situation, then, becomes at least somewhat pitiful, and his motivations much clearer. There are some features of the speech that seem to shore this reading up. My gorge rises at it. HAMLET From top to toe? Since no man of aught he leaves knows, what is't to leave betimes? On the one hand, there is no denying that his advice is often sound, if generally cliched and obvious, and very memorably expressed. Time for a history snack: If Hamlet were a real person and alive today, he'd probably be diagnosed with clinical depression. The fact of mortality is, so to speak, staring Hamlet in the face. Throughout the story, Hamlet exists in a melancholy state, "essentially not in madness, / But mad in craft" (3. [...] Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this special observance that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature; for anything so o'erdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end both at the first, and now, was and is, to hold as 'twere the mirror up to nature, to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure. At the same time, he asserts that we know nothing of the world -- "no man of aught he leaves knows." He cannot decide whether he should kill himself or live with these problems in his life. Speaking of his cruel reasoning in this moment, Samuel Johnson wrote, "This speech, in which Hamlet, represented as a virtuous character, is not content with taking blood for blood, but contrives damnation for the man that he would punish, is too horrible to be read or to be uttered.". Suggestions Use up and down arrows to review and enter to select. Just have a general sense of where they belong chronologically eg In the nunnery scene or In the prayer scene or In the gravediggers scene I have that within me which passes show/ these but the trappings and the suits of woe Hamlet to Gertrude. The slings … That he nevertheless feels comfortable positing that one should be true to oneself (whatever that means) and thereby never false to any man is a testament to his shallow disregard for the deeper import and meaning of his language. 164). His father was, indeed, a great military ruler, off conquering and governing conquered lands. So you are obliged to revenge, when you shall hear me. / About, my brains." Hamlet's second soliloquy, given after the player has recited the woeful story of Priam's death and Hecuba's grief, explores the nature of performance. He is forever plotting strategems and eavesdropping behind the arras. We need not go so far to see the strange mixture of affection and disgust that Yorick's skull give rise to in Hamlet. Some editors follow the second quarto and admit "sallied flesh" (or even "sullied flesh"). What good is it, then, to roil one's guts over future plans? Analysis: To be, or not to be... (3.1), Soliloquy Analysis: Tis now the very witching time of night... (3.2), Soliloquy Analysis: Now might I do it pat... (3.3), Soliloquy Analysis: How all occasions do inform against me... (4.4), The Baker's Daughter: Ophelia's Nursery Rhymes, In Secret Conference: The Meeting Between Claudius and Laertes, The Death of Polonius and its Impact on Hamlet's Character, An Excuse for Doing Nothing: Hamlet's Delay, Defending Claudius - The Charges Against the King, Shakespeare's Fools: The Grave-Diggers in, Hamlet's Humor: The Wit of Shakespeare's Prince of Denmark, Hamlet's Melancholy: The Transformation of the Prince. The linchpin of this question is -- after we die, do we continue to exist, or do we stop existing? If it be now, 'tis not to come. Hamlet reveals the primeval roots of theater as he understands them -- to act as a mirror on both the universal and the particular levels, reflecting both human nature across centuries and the peculiar habits of a given time in history. Hamlet, in this scene, is not nearly so sympathetic. As Sir Herbert Tree has recently said: \"But for humor he should go mad. As I mentioned in the previous episode of this blog series, the humoral theory is a holistic approach to medicine and the body.The humours affect your bodily and mental health alike, and what you do with your body and mind will in turn affect … He is windy and empty. 4. Indeed, they run counter to the deepest nature of theater, which is to depict humanity not in a grotesque form, but as it actually is. Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favor she must come. Because Hamlet expresses a desire that the flesh go from a firm and resilient to something like a liquid or gaseous state, I have opted for "solid" as more consistent with the elemental imagery of the passage. foh! He cannot truly repent while he still possesses the fruits of his sin, his brother's crown and wife. For Hamlet as the play opens, existence itself is a burden; he wishes that the body could simply melt away and free him from his torment. Hamlet's feeling of despair towards his life and to the world To be, or not to be. Who does me this?" To die, to sleep -- / To sleep, perchance to dream. Melancholy Hamlet Essay 1977 Words | 8 Pages. One phrase in particular is very rich coming from Polonius -- "to thine own self be true, / And it must follow as the night the day / Thou canst not then be false to any man." Again, his apprehension is god-like, but what good does it do him? “But it is a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted from many objects, and indeed the sundry contemplation of my travels, which, by often rumination, wraps me in the most humorous sadness.” ― William Shakespeare, As You Like It There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow. When Hamlet’s mother asks him why he still seems so upset about his father’s death, he replies that he doesn’t just “seem” to be in mourning, he has feelings within himself that surpass what other people can see from the outside. “I have absolutely no pleasure in the stimulants in which I sometimes so madly indulge. HAMLET ’Tis very strange. One phrase in particular is very rich coming from Polonius -- \"to thine own self be true, / And it must follow as the night the … To put an antic disposition on. Hamlet is still speaking in his first of five soliloquies. Seem to me all the uses of this world! O, that this too too sullied flesh would melt, Thaw and resolve itself into a dew, Or that the Everlasting had not fixed. Quite chop-fallen? Hamlet is completely incapable of explaining or changing his character; he can merely eloquently wonder at it. This is a moment of pure and deep contemplation of death. When the Ghost tells Hamlet about Claudius’s murder, Hamlet responds strangely: he tells his friend Horatio and the watchman Marcellus that he is going to pretend to be mad. / Is it not monstrous that this player here, / But in a fiction, in a dream of passion, / Could force his soul so to his own conceit / That from her working all his visage wanned; / Tears in his eyes, distraction in his aspect, / A broken voice, and his whole function suiting / With forms to his conceit? Life in Stratford (structures and guilds), Life in Stratford (trades, laws, furniture, hygiene). Let be. Stratford School Days: What Did Shakespeare Read? It is another meditation on the inscrutability of his failure to act when he has so much reason to do so. / Sure he that made us with such large discourse, / Looking before and after, gave us not / That capability and godlike reason / To fust in us unused. London: R.G. Overacting, clowing, and mugging might gain a moment's applause, but these things are not valuable beyond immediate gratification. How does the actors’ play in Act 3 Scene 2 portray the marriage between Hamlet’s mother and father? From the outset of the novel in which his character is introduced, Hamlet is troubled by his melancholic condition. An additional quote that shows Hamlet to be depressed comes at the beginning of his monologue in act 2, scene 2: "I have of late—but / wherefore I know not—lost all my mirth." The glass of fashion. Hamlet says fine, and the King and Queen exit with their courtiers, leaving the moody and depressed Prince alone. Give thy thoughts no tongue, / Nor any unproportioned thought his act. His melancholy is metaphysical in nature and cosmic in scope. So all things are rich with meaning, yet we know not what such meaning might be. The readiness is all. 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