Act 5, Scene 2

Michael de Montaigne

• 1533 - 1592

• Famous for ‘Que sçay-je” (“What do I know” in Middle French)

• Known as sceptic, who questioned what we know and what we can control

• First modern man

OSRIC

Prose = antic disposition

Fake. Landowner

Trying to provoke Hamlet into fighting

“If it be not now, ‘tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come”

Whatever happens happens. Related back to the “divinity that shapes”

“We defy augury. There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow”

God is the causes of all death

“I shall win at the odds”

Confidence. Written in prose. Hamlet has gone so mad that he truly believes he can win or putting on false show

“In all’s here about my heart”

Creating tension for the audience who suspect fight will end badly. Anaphoric reference to “sick at heart”

“The divided self”

Reality vs madness

“Brother”

Parallels/foils. Both have killed fathers. Both seek revenge

“I am more antique than Roman than a Dane”

Horatio would rather kill himself than live without Hamlet

C/R with Romeo and Juliet

Cyclical

Fortinbras mentioned on 2 occasions at beginning and appears at end

Fortinbras = foil. What Hamlet could’ve been if he overcame his Hermatia (indecisiveness)

Emphasise theme of time

New beginnings. Fortinbras becomes the new King of Denmark

Death order

Gertrude → Claudius → Laertes → Hamlet