HAMLET [Act 1 Scene 2] - QUOTES & ANALYSIS

‘Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother’s death / The memory be green…’ Claudius

• The metaphor of ‘green’ connotes freshness and pureness, but also immaturity and corruption

• Claudius masks his guilt with public display of balance between grief and celebration

• Claudius presents himself as controlled and diplomatic but Shakespeare layers his speech with irony - we later learn that this was the man that killed Hamlet

• Elizabethan audiences were sensitive to questions of legitimacy and succession; Claudius’s language recalls a carefully staged political performance

Argument for ‘Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother’s death / The memory be green…’ Claudius

• Shakespeare presents Claudius as a skilled political manipulator, disguising his corruption with calculated rhetoric that masks the rawness of grief

‘With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage’ Claudius

• Juxtaposition of ‘mirth’ and ‘funeral’, ‘dirge’ and ‘marriage’ highlights unnatural blending of opposites

• Suggests corruption - joy and mourning should NOT coexist

• This oxymoronic rhetoric reflects Claudius’s hypocrisy and foreshadows the wider moral confusion of Denmark

• The Elizabethan Great Chain of Being would see such disorder (mixing life/death/sorrow) as a sign of sin and chaos

Argument for ‘With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage’ Claudius

• The blending of joy and sorrow symbolises the moral and political corruption at the heart of Denmark, where natural order has been disturbed (regicide committed by Claudius)

‘A little more than kin, and less than kind’ (Hamlet, aside)

• Hamlet’s first line is a pun: Claudius is “more than kin” (now both uncle and stepfather) but “less than kind” (unnatural, unkind) - wordplay conveys wit but also alienation

• Hamlet establishes himself as cynical, isolated and resistant to C’s authority

• Hamlet doesn’t hold those ruthless qualities that make him a murderer (hence he resists to kill C)

• Wordplay and asides are common devices to establish intimacy with the audience - they’re invited into Hamlet’s private contempt

Argument for ‘A little more than kin, and less than kind’ (Hamlet, aside)

• For his aside, Hamlet is characterised as alienated and cynical establishing him as a truth teller who sees through Claudius’s hollow performance

‘But I have that within which passeth show; / These but the trappings and the suits of woe’ (Hamlet)

• Hamlet distinguishes true grief (“within”) from outward appearance (“trappings” and “suits”)

• Shakespeare uses antithesis to highlight the sincerity versus performance

• Contrasts Hamlet’s genuine mourning with Claudius’s hollow rhetoric - Hamlet becomes aligned with truth and authenticity

• Reflects Renaissance concern with appearance vs reality - clothing and disguise are frequent motifs

Argument for ‘But I have that within which passeth show; / These but the trappings and the suits of woe’ (Hamlet)

• Shakespeare contrasts Hamlet’s authentic grief with Claudius’s performative mourning, reinforcing the theme of appearance versus reality

‘O, that this too too solid flesh would melt, / Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew’ (Hamlet soliloquy)

• Imagery of melting flesh conveys suicidal desire; harsh consonants in ‘too too solid’ emphasise frustration and disgust at the physical world

• Establishes Hamlet’s melancholy and despair

• His disgust is both personal (grief for his father) and moral (revulsion at Gertrude and Claudius)

• In an era when suicide was a mortal sin, Hamlet’s wish to dissolve into “dew” reflects religious conflict between desire and prohibition

Argument for ‘O, that this too too solid flesh would melt, / Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew’ (Hamlet soliloquy)

• Hamlet’s first soliloquy reveals his profound despair, framing him as a tragic hero torn between suicidal desire and religious prohibition

‘Frailty, thy name is a woman!’ Hamlet

• Abstract noun ‘frailty’ personified and equated with ‘women’

• A sweeping generalisation triggered by Gertrude’s remarriage

• Reflects Hamlet’s misogyny and disillusionment, projecting his disgust with Gertrude onto all women

• Resonates with Renaissance anxieties about female weakness, sexuality and moral reliability

Argument for ‘‘Frailty, thy name is a woman!’ Hamlet

• Hamlet’s disillusionment with Gertrude becomes generalised misogyny and prejudice exposing Renaissance anxieties about female weakness and sexuality

‘It is not, nor it cannot come to good’ (Hamlet)

• The repetition and negative convey a tone of absolute certainty; Hamlet’s pessimism foreshadows tragedy

• Suggests that Claudius’s rule is doomed, reinforcing Hamlet’s role as truth teller even as he remains powerless

• Tragedy convention often position the protagonist as one who sees corruption before others - H plays this role from the start

Argument for ‘It is not, nor it cannot come to good’ (Hamlet)

• Hamlet’s pessimistic certainty foreshadows Denmark’s downfall, positioning him as prophet-like in his ability to detect moral decay