Hamlet Background Info-AP Lit

Soliloquy

a character speaking their thoughts aloud

Blank Verse

(iambic pentameter) verse without rhyme

Aside

a remark that is said by a character for only the audience to hear

Revenge Tragedy

protagonist seeking revenge for a death/injury in an Elizabethan story

Deus Ex Machina

“God in the machine”

Double Entendre

a word/phrase with two definitions with one typically risque

Dramatic Irony

audience knowing something the characters don’t

Foil

characters that are opposites and one’s purpose is to contrast to the other

Apostrophe

a character speaking to an inanimate, dead, or not present thing/person

Allusion

alluding to something in a story without saying it specifically

Paradox

has two meanings that cannot coexist, but do

Metonymy

replacing the name of something with something related to or associated with it

Synecdoche

replacing the name of something with a part of it

Anachronism

something being incongruent in a story’s setting because it belongs to another time period

Doctrine of Decorum

characters of high class = poetry

characters of low class = prose

The Great Chain of Being

hierarchal view of society and if broken, chaos ensues

The Oedipus Complex

weird thing where kid desires parent

Hamlet Sr

suspiciously dies after killing Fortinbras Sr (reappears as ghost)

Claudius

Hamlet’s uncle that becomes king and marries his mother after Hamlet Sr dies

Gertrude

Hamlet’s mother that marries Hamlet’s uncle

Horatio

Hamlet’s friend/voice of reason

R and G

Hamlet’s college friends/comic relief

Fortinbras Sr

King of Norway that is killed by Hamlet Sr

Fortinbras Jr

expects land from Denmark because his father was killed by Hamlet Sr which broke their land pact (foil to Hamlet Jr)

Lord Polonius

right hand man/chief advisor of Claudius

Laertes

soldier and son of Lord Polonius (foil to Hamlet)

Ophelia

daughter of Lord Polonius and in love with Hamlet