Act 1, Scene 2

What happens?

1. Claudius speech and sends Voltemand and Cornelius to Norway

2. Agrees to Laertes going to France

3. Hamlet’s grief ‘unmanly’

4. Hamlet’s soliloquy

5. Horatio tells Hamlet about ghost

6. Hamlet agrees to watch for ghost

“Madam”

Hamlet to mother

Out of spite because she got remarried

Formal

Rhetoric

Convincing speech that often insincere

Antithesis in Claudius’s speech

“Mirth in funeral and dirge in marriage”

“One auspicious and one dropping eye”

“Weighing delight and dole”

“Defeated joy”

“Think on him, Together with remembrance of ourselves”

Claudius order of importance

King Hamlet’s death (rushed to get it out of the way) —> His new wife (slightly rushed) —> Fortinbra’s plan (Taking on his Kingly duties) —> Laertes’s news —> Hamlet

Diminishing Hamlet, either thinks he is least important or saving the best til last

Claudius first impressions

Wants peace with Norway

Diplomatic

Old King Hamlet suited up vs Claudius sending others to fight for him

“Sometimes sister, now our queen”

Married late brother’s wife. Self aware

“Little more than kin, and less than kind”

Super related but couldn’t be further in thoughts

Pun - Hamlet’s witty (“Not so my lord; I am too much I’ the sun”)

“His canon ‘gains self-slaughter! O God! O God!”

First soliloquy

Wants to kill himself but God will not allow him to

“Hyperion to a Satyr”

First soliloquy

Hyperion = God of light. Compliment, Greek, Late King Hamlet

Satyr = Half man, half ghost. Insulting, Greek mythology, Claudius

“A beast, that wants discourse of reason”

Lower than a beast because she does not emotionally for the animal. Not sentient

“Galled eyes”

About Gertrude

Chafing, pain, discomfort

Still crying when remarried, moved on quickly after death

“Incestuous sheets”

Sibilance - snake, venom, evil

King Henry VIII married dead brother’s wife and then divorced her because he said felt “incestuous”