(Hamlet) Hamlet

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  • Created by: NHow02
  • Created on: 26-05-19 10:42
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  • Hamlet
    • As misled
      • 'my father's spirit'
        • Quick to accept it as his father (needs guidance)
          • Pronoun takes responsibility of father's soul
        • 'I'll follow thee'
          • Establishes commitment to enact revenge ('into madness')
          • Protestant audience would have been more wary (devil in disguise)
        • Catholic idea of purgatory (Hamlet also trapped by revenge)
          • Hamlet's struggle reflects religious division (reformation & restoration)
            • Swinburne: "the strong conflux of contending forces."
          • Earl of Southampton& father known as Catholic
      • 'Nemean lion's nerve'
        • Hercules strangled a lion without nerves (felt no pain)
          • Lions are also seen as symbols of courage (common charge in heraldry)
        • Nasal alliteration slow pace (soft consonance suggests hesitation)
          • Hanmer: his action is 'unworthy of a hero'
      • ''That sucked the honey of his music vows' (Act 3, Scene 1)
        • Sensual words 'honey'/ 'music' creates an alluring effect
          • Sweetness suggests an overload of senses (inability to trust senses)
          • Hamlet makes satirical comments with double meanings
    • As Suicidal
      • 'There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow'
        • Biblical reference: symbol for God’s infinite control & care
          • Hamlet accepts death peacefully
        • 'providence' = God's intervention (natural order)
        • Small bird suggests insignificance(omen of death)
      • 'when we have shuffled off this mortal coil'
        • 'coil' creates an image of entrapment
        • sibilance of 'shuffled' creates a reluctant effect
          • Hamlet is unable to take action due to his over-contemplation of death
            • Confuses 'to die, to sleep - '
              • O'Toole: 'death is the picture, not he frame'
    • As the Malcontent
      • 'I am too much I'th'sun'
        • Double meanings introduce Hamlet as an intellectual character
        • Hamlet finds himself too closely related to Claudius (literally & otherwise)
          • 'If the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a good kissing carrion'
            • 'Carrion' could mean a crow (omen of death) or dead flesh (associates female love with death)
              • Cutting 'c' alliteration creates a violent effect + but also suggests brevity
            • 'dead dog' suggests loyalty leads to death OR counts for nothing
            • 'Let her not walk i'th'sun'
              • Wants to protect Ophelia from himself
          • Hyppolyte Taine: 'the story of moral poisoning'
      • 'sea of troubles'
        • Elizabethan audiences would have understood the dangers of sea
          • Armada in 1588
        • Alludes to  Emperor Caligula who waged war on the sea (futile)
          • Hyperbole due to great expanse (causes Ophelia to drown)

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