Tuesday, 18 September Hamlet's first soliloquy

Due Today: Act I.ii. reading

For next class, Wednesday, 19 September: read Act I.iii and Act I.iv.  *

Thursday, 20 September: finish Act I.


In class today:

Define soliloquy

We will be discussing Act I.ii., looking at the literary elements and figurative language. The discussion will focus on Hamlet's soliloquy, from Act I.ii., as it appears below.

We will discuss the following points:
1. Who or what is the "Everlasting"?
2. What is Hamlet contemplating and why is this such a problem?
3. What exactly has happened that has angered him?
4. Hamlet makes this analogy: So excellent a king; that was, to this,
Hyperion to a satyr   

HAMLET'S FIRST SOLILOQUY:

ORIGINAL TEXT: (I.i..133-164)

O that this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on't! O fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
But two months dead! — nay, not so much, not two:
So excellent a king; that was, to this,
Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother,
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on: and yet, within a month, —
Let me not think on't, — Frailty, thy name is woman! —
A little month; or ere those shoes were old
With which she followed my poor father's body
Like Niobe, all tears; — why she, even she, —
O God! a beast that wants discourse of reason,
Would have mourn'd longer, — married with mine uncle,
My father's brother; but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules: within a month;
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
She married: — O, most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
It is not, nor it cannot come to good;
But break my heart, — for I must hold my tongue!