Rereading Hamlet
Like any great literary work, Hamlet demands and rewards multiple readings, and perhaps one day you will reread the play in its
entirety. I hope so. But for our immediate purposes, here are a few speeches that are worth re-reading as you consider this tour de
force that you’ve just finished. I understand that you may have blown through the reading assignments quickly over the last month
(and yes, I’m aware that some of you blew them off entirely , although they’re likely not the ones who are reading this right now,
now are they?), so now is a good time to go back into the text and read carefully, or read carefully again.
Location
First Line
Context
Act I, Scene 2, 76 – 86
“‘Seems,’ madam? Nay, it is. I know not ‘seems’”
Hamlet, in response to Gertrude’s
imperious observations about his mournfulness.
Act I, Scene 2, 129 – 159
“Oh, that this too, too sallied flesh would melt”
Hamlet’s first soliloquy after being chastised
by Claudius and Gertrude for being too mournful
Act I, Scene 5, 92 - 112
“O all you host of heaven! O Earth! What else?”
Hamlet’s soliloquy immediately following
the Ghost’s revelations about his father’s murder
Act II, Scene 2, 259 - 274
“I have of late—but wherefore I”
Hamlet, in a rare moment of genuineness,
reveals his melancholy to R & G
Act II, Scene 2, 476 - 531
“Oh, what a rogue and peasant slave am I”
Hamlet’s soliloquy, just after jamming with
the Players on the speech about the fall of Troy
Act III, Scene 1, 55 – 87
“To be, or not to be? That is the question”
Hamlet
Act III, Scene 1, 120 – 148
“Get thee to a nunnery. Why wouldst thou . . . ”
Hamlet to Ophelia (and to Polonius as well).
Hamlet’s intentions in this scene are ambiguous.
Act III, Scene 1, 149 – 160
“Oh, what a noble mind is here overthrown!”
Ophelia’s observation about Hamlet’s
apparent mental decline, revealing her
thoughts and feelings about him.
Act III, Scene 2, 174 – 203
“I do believe you think what you now speak”
The Player King’s speech to the Player Queen
regarding the inconstancy of our promises (this
speech is as relevant to Hamlet’s situation as it
is to the play)
Act III, Scene 2, 366 – 377
“’Tis now the very witching time of night”
Hamlet, after venting his anger at R & G for
trying to play him and before the intense
conversation with Gertrude.
Act III, Scene 3, 36 – 72
“Oh, my offence is rank. It smells to Heaven”
Claudius’s soliloquy.
Act III, Scene 4, 53 – 88
“Look here upon this picture and on this”
Hamlet criticizing Gertrude for a lack of prudence
Act III, Scene 4, 140 – 180
“My pulse as yours does temperately keep time”
Hamlet convincing Gertrude that he is sane
“Oh, throw away the worser part of it”
Hamlet guiding Gertrude out of the moral
morass that she finds herself in
Act IV, Scene 4, 29 – 63
“How all occasions do inform against me”
Hamlet’s soliloquy after observing Fortinbras and
his army marching across Denmark for Poland.
Act IV, Scene 5, 128 – 134
“How came he dead? I’ll not be juggled with”
Laertes’s questioning Claudius and revealing his
unbridled lust for vengeance
Act V, Scene 2, 4 – 11
“Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting”
Hamlet describing to Horatio both his previous
mental & emotional turmoil and his current peace.
Act V, Scene 2, 191 – 195
“Not a whit. We defy augury. There is special . . . ”
Hamlet confiding in Horatio just before the dual.
The Biblical allusion to Matthew 10:29 – 31
reinforces Hamlet’s earlier reference to the “divinity
that shapes our ends, and his ruminations on the
irrelevance of when death occurs and that “the
readiness is all” suggest that Hamlet has made
peace with the ambiguities of life and death.