a word from our sponsors

See the new shakespeare.com. This feature, while it still provides useful information, is no longer maintained.


Replies | Post Reply | Shakespeare Queries From Genuinely Interested Students 4.2.97: Top | Help


Don't understand Hamlet's first soliloquy!!

HAMLET
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! God!
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on't! ah 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 follow'd 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 my 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.

1) I need a summarise on the above soliloquy!!
2) Also, I need to know specific reference on the use of any of
the following: a) alliteration, repetition
b) pun, allusion
c) metaphor, simile, personification.
(Explain the effect of the devices that you have discussed and why & how used)
3)Discuss the dramtic impact/value of the speech.

THANXXXXX for you help!!!

Posted by Ryu on April 18, 1997 at 16:10:56


 Replies


 Post a Reply

Name
E-mail
Reply in brief

Reply at length
 
 
(Note: line breaks
 will be preserved)

   
Optional Section (if desired, please fill out before submitting your reply)
Site URL
Site Name
Image URL

Replies | Post Reply | Shakespeare Queries From Genuinely Interested Students 4.2.97: Top | Help