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Hamlet
Includes questions specifically asking about this Shakespeare play. Questions about the movie version should be placed under "Movies." Questions about Shakespeare should be placed under his category under Authors and Poets.
2,117 Questions
From Hamlet Act 1, Scene 2, Page 4:
These indeed "seem,"
For they are actions that a man might play.
But I have that within which passeth show,
These but the trappings and the suits of woe.
The correct answer is: He's saying that outward appearances of grief may be feigned, but that what he feels is real grief.
What action is hamlet considering at the opening of his speech?
He makes more than one speech. But assuming you are meaning the one that goes "Now is the very witching hour of night, when churchyards yawn and Hell itself breathes contagion into this world. Now could I drink hot blood." he is thinking about killing Claudius.
Hamlet's mother died by drinking a goblet of wine that was supposed to go to Hamlet. The King had poisoned the wine in an attempt to kill Hamlet and seeing his queen about to take a sip, he tries to persuade her otherwise. She drinks anyway.
In the play, the poison is called "hebenon," and no one knows for sure what that equates to.
In the Second Quarto of 'Hamlet', printed 1604-5, the poison is called "Hebona." The word "Hebenon," as mentioned, is the spelling in the First Folio, 1623. That leaves it unclear exactly which word Shakespeare, himself, used. He might even have used both spellings, at different times, since the play printings are nearly 20 years apart.
Other writers, in the same era, used "heben" or "hebon" for the name of a deadly poison, or for something that was considered especially deadly. Christopher Marlowe, in his play 'The Jew of Malta,' wrote: "... the blood of Hydra, Lerna's bane, The juice of hebon, and Cocytus breath, And all the poisons of the Stygian pool ..."
Shakespeare may have simply gotten the word from reading what Marlowe wrote, but changed it slightly to fit his verse. Marlowe's word "hebon" becomes Shakespeare's word "hebona," as it was printed in the Second Quarto, just by adding an 'a' to the end. Nobody will ever know for sure, but it might be just that easy: Shakespeare read Marlowe's writing, and got the basic word from that. Maybe.
What is Claudius the king of in Hamlet?
Claudius was hamlets Uncle and later became his stepfather because his mother Queen Gertrude married Hamlets uncle "Claudius".
I think you must know the answer to this better than anyone here. Maybe it's because you find the gravediggers funny. Maybe it's because you like Hamlet's dirty jokes.
Where does hamlet tell Claudius he can go find polonius body?
Good question. He cannot hope to hide the crime and indeed has no intention of doing so. He tells his mother "I will bestow him and will answer well the death I gave him." It would appear that his main intention is to annoy and harass Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and Claudius who are looking for the body to give it a decent burial.
What is important about ophelia gaves away flowers?
Ophelia's flowers are the symbol of her madness. Here her brother has been sent away, her lover has begun verbally abusing her, and her father has been brutally murdered and rushed to burial. She reaches out to things natural and beautiful (the flowers), before falling into the pong and letting herself drown (as in "there is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow").
What date when king Hamlet was died?
Hamlet is a fictitious character. He was not really born and did not really die. Unless it says something in the text of the play about it, and it doesn't, there can be no answer to this question.
What was happening while Hamlet meets horatio and bernardo?
Hamlet meets them, as well as Marcellus, in Act I Scene 2. Claudius has just made a long speech talking, among other things, about how he has married Gertrude. Hamlet has jsut had a long soliloquy in which he complains about the haste in which the wedding has taken place. When he asks Horatio, "What make you from Wittenberg?" Horatio responds "I came to see your father's funeral" and Hamlet replies "Do not mock me, fellow student, I think it was to see my mother's wedding."
What was this event at which Claudius makes a big speech, and Gertrude asks Hamlet to cast his nighted colour off? It might have been the wedding banquet. That is not certain however.
How old is the story of Hamlet?
Hamlet asks the gravedigger how long he has been a gravedigger, and the gravedigger answers that he started his job the day King Hamlet defeated Fortinbras senior, which was the day young Hamlet was born. The gravedigger then says "I have been sexton here man and boy thirty years." Hamlet is therefore thirty years old.
To whom was Hamlet referring when he said Those that are married already all but one shall live?
He is talking about Claudius and about killing him.
What school did Hamlet attend during the play Hamlet?
He went to school in England with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
He's a fictional character (the one in the Shakespeare play) and the play does not give a birthday for him. The play is based, very loosely, on a historical prince called Amleth who lived in the 800s sometime.
Do the guards make Hamlet stand with them after seeing the ghost?
The guards report of the Ghost and point out to the apparition when it appears in presence of Horatio.Both Hamlet and Horatio debate on the appearance of the Ghost .The guards presence is not explicit although they seem to be present at the tower.
Who will be able to speak to the ghost in hamlet by shakespeare?
Marcellus and Barnardo assume that Horatio, being an educated man, will have studied Speaking to Ghosts 101 at Wittenberg University and will know how to talk to it.
Why does Hamlet call his play The Mousetrap?
Hamlet doesn't actually stage a play called The Mousetrap. He asks the travelling players (The Tragedians of the City) to put on The Murder of Gonzago, which is the real name of the play. Hamlet calls it the Mousetrap because his purpose in asking them to play it is to trap Claudius into a confession of guilt.
Why doesn't horatio want Hamlet to follow the ghost?
horatio does not want hamlet to follow the ghost because horatio thinks its something evil like the devil in the form of his dead father trying to presuade him
Was Horatio in Hamlet static or dynamic?
The character named Horatio in Hamlet is a dynamic character.
What year was Hamlet played in the globe theatre?
Possibly not. The Globe Theatre was built in 1599 by which time Shakespeare had been writing plays for almost ten years. Some of his less popular early plays may not have been revived after the Globe was built. However, we have no way of telling since there was not a complete record of which plays were performed at the Globe. We only have incomplete snippets that come from people's diaries and letters.
What is an example of a compound sentences in hamlet?
It depends on what definition of "compound sentence" you use. Some of them contain horribly artificial distinctions between "compound sentences" and "complex sentences" (One source described "I am feeling hot as I am not wearing a hat" as "compound" and "I am feeling hot because I am not wearing a hat" as "complex" notwithstanding that they mean exactly the same thing and their grammar is identical)
However, the sources do tend to agree that "compound" or "complex" sentences have multiple clauses. Such sentences are common in Shakespeare. E.g. "He hath borne me on his back a thousand times and now, how abhorrent in my imagination it is." "My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent and, like a man to double business bound, I stand in pause where I shall first begin, and both neglect." "We pray you, throw to earth this unprevailing woe, and think of us as of a father, for let the world take note, you are the most immediate to our throne, and with no less nobility of love than that which dearest father bears his son do I impart toward you."
In his To be or not to be soliloquy what does Hamlet equate with death?
Going on living versus committing suicide. He does this several times in different language. First, pithily: "To be" (living) vs. "Not to be" (dying). Then more drawn out: "suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" (living) vs. "take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them" (dying). Then as an argument for suicide: "To sleep" (dying) vs. "the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to" (living). Then at great length with a catalogue: "bear the whips and scorns of time, th'oppressor's wrong etc. etc." (living) vs. "his quietus make with a bare bodkin" (dying). And again: "fardels bear, to grunt and sweat under a weary life" (living) vs. "the undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returns" (dying).
In Hamlet whom does Polonius send to France to spy on laertes?
Polonius expects Laertes, when he is in Paris, to spend his time in pubs, brothels and gambling dens. He sends Reynaldo to spy on him and observe all his faults, and presumably to report back to Polonius. Why does Polonius do this? Because he loves spying on people. We will see him use this technique on Hamlet later on.
Why does Claudius hire rosencrantz and gulidenstern as spies?
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern did not arrange for the players to play Elsinore. They passed them on the road and thus were aware that they were coming. But the actors were on tour anyway and would have arrived in Elsinore whether they met R + G or not. Apparently business in the city had been bad because of a surge in popularity for children's companies (a comment on the theatrical situation in London at about the time Hamlet was written, ca. 1600)
Hamlet, an amateur actor himself, is excited by this turn of events and Ros and Guil report this to the King and Queen. Claudius commands them to "drive him on", to encourage him to involve himself in the theatre.
Who said in your minds eye in the play Hamlet?
Hamlet: My father! Methinks I see my father!
Horatio: Where, my lord?
Hamlet: In my mind's eye, Horatio.
