Hamlet

Hamlet

by

William Shakespeare

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Hamlet Character Analysis

Read our modern English translation.
Prince of Denmark, son of the late King Hamlet and Queen Gertrude, and nephew and stepson to Claudius. Hamlet is one of the most famous figures in Western literature, and, in the world of the theater, one of the most complicated, difficult, and yet sought-after roles ever created. Hamlet’s existentialism, immaturity, and layered, constructed personality make him an odd leading man—a protagonist in a revenge play that is less about the revenge itself and more about tearing down notions of whether vengeance is ever justified (or ever enough). Hamlet, a university student, delivers several long monologues and soliloquies throughout the play which plunge the depths of his psyche—or at least seem to—as he tries to figure out the difference between what society has led him to believe and what his own core beliefs truly are. For instance, though Hamlet’s father’s ghost charges him with securing vengeance for Claudius’s brutal act of regicide, Hamlet isn’t sure whether there is truly any honor in revenge—and his inability to decide one way or the other results in his halting, hobbling inaction, his endless musings on the nature of life and death, and his festering inability to tell the difference between what is real and what is perceived. Shakespeare uses Hamlet to explore the nihilism that takes over once one begins to see life and death as arbitrary and meaningless, and to imagine what cruelties, betrayals, and charades one might resort to as a result of that nihilism. Hamlet’s despicable treatment of his lover Ophelia and his mother Gertrude, his slaying of Polonius, and his public humiliation of Claudius are all consequences of his inability to act simply and decisively—and yet with every day that Hamlet refuses to take action, kill his murderous stepfather, and claim the throne for himself, the “rotten” core of Denmark grows more and more unstable, and vulnerable to foreign interference. Anxious, poetic, brooding, and yet oftentimes rebellious and playful, Hamlet’s contradictory personality, convoluted speeches, and tragic fate make him one of Shakespeare’s best-known characters, and one of theater’s greatest enigmas of all time.

Hamlet Quotes in Hamlet

The Hamlet quotes below are all either spoken by Hamlet or refer to Hamlet. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Action and Inaction Theme Icon
).
Act 1, Scene 2 Quotes

Seems, madam! Nay, it is; I know not “seems.”

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker), Gertrude
Page Number: 1.2.79
Explanation and Analysis:

O, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew.

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker)
Page Number: 1.2.133-134
Explanation and Analysis:

Frailty, thy name is woman!

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker), Gertrude
Page Number: 1.2.150
Explanation and Analysis:

Thrift, thrift, Horatio! The funeral baked meats
Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker), Claudius, Gertrude, Horatio
Page Number: 1.2.187-188
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 1, Scene 4 Quotes

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

Related Characters: Marcellus (speaker), Hamlet, The Ghost, Horatio
Page Number: 1.4.100
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 1, Scene 5 Quotes

O, villain, villain, smiling, damnèd villain!

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker), Claudius
Page Number: 1.5.113
Explanation and Analysis:

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker), Horatio
Page Number: 1.5.187-188
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 2, Scene 2 Quotes

There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker), Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
Page Number: 2.2.268-270
Explanation and Analysis:

O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker), Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
Page Number: 2.2.273-275
Explanation and Analysis:

What a piece of work is a man, how noble in
reason, how infinite in faculties, in form, in moving
how express and admirable; in action how like
an angel, in apprehension how like a god: the
beauty of the world, the paragon of animals—and
yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker), Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
Page Number: 2.2.327-332
Explanation and Analysis:

What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her?

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker), First Player
Page Number: 2.2.586-587
Explanation and Analysis:

The play’s the thing,
Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker), Claudius
Page Number: 2.2.633-634
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 3, Scene 1 Quotes

To be or not to be—that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And, by opposing, end them.

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker)
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 3.1.64-68
Explanation and Analysis:

Get thee to a nunnery. Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest, but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me…

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker), Ophelia
Page Number: 3.1.131-134
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 3, Scene 2 Quotes

Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play upon me, you would seem to know my stops, you would pluck out the heart of my mystery… ’Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me.

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker), Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
Page Number: 3.2.393-402
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 4, Scene 3 Quotes

CLAUDIUS: What dost thou mean by this?

HAMLET: Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar.

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker), Claudius (speaker), Polonius
Page Number: 4.3.33-35
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 5, Scene 1 Quotes

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio—a fellow of infinite jest… Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar?

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker), Horatio, Yorick
Related Symbols: Yorick’s Skull
Page Number: 5.1.190-198
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 5, Scene 2 Quotes

We defy augury. There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all.

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker), Horatio
Page Number: 5.2.233-237
Explanation and Analysis:

Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince,
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

Related Characters: Horatio (speaker), Hamlet
Page Number: 5.2.397-398
Explanation and Analysis:
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Hamlet Quotes in Hamlet

The Hamlet quotes below are all either spoken by Hamlet or refer to Hamlet. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Action and Inaction Theme Icon
).
Act 1, Scene 2 Quotes

Seems, madam! Nay, it is; I know not “seems.”

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker), Gertrude
Page Number: 1.2.79
Explanation and Analysis:

O, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew.

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker)
Page Number: 1.2.133-134
Explanation and Analysis:

Frailty, thy name is woman!

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker), Gertrude
Page Number: 1.2.150
Explanation and Analysis:

Thrift, thrift, Horatio! The funeral baked meats
Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker), Claudius, Gertrude, Horatio
Page Number: 1.2.187-188
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 1, Scene 4 Quotes

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

Related Characters: Marcellus (speaker), Hamlet, The Ghost, Horatio
Page Number: 1.4.100
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 1, Scene 5 Quotes

O, villain, villain, smiling, damnèd villain!

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker), Claudius
Page Number: 1.5.113
Explanation and Analysis:

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker), Horatio
Page Number: 1.5.187-188
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 2, Scene 2 Quotes

There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker), Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
Page Number: 2.2.268-270
Explanation and Analysis:

O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker), Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
Page Number: 2.2.273-275
Explanation and Analysis:

What a piece of work is a man, how noble in
reason, how infinite in faculties, in form, in moving
how express and admirable; in action how like
an angel, in apprehension how like a god: the
beauty of the world, the paragon of animals—and
yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker), Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
Page Number: 2.2.327-332
Explanation and Analysis:

What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her?

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker), First Player
Page Number: 2.2.586-587
Explanation and Analysis:

The play’s the thing,
Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker), Claudius
Page Number: 2.2.633-634
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 3, Scene 1 Quotes

To be or not to be—that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And, by opposing, end them.

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker)
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 3.1.64-68
Explanation and Analysis:

Get thee to a nunnery. Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest, but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me…

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker), Ophelia
Page Number: 3.1.131-134
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 3, Scene 2 Quotes

Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play upon me, you would seem to know my stops, you would pluck out the heart of my mystery… ’Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me.

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker), Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
Page Number: 3.2.393-402
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 4, Scene 3 Quotes

CLAUDIUS: What dost thou mean by this?

HAMLET: Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar.

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker), Claudius (speaker), Polonius
Page Number: 4.3.33-35
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 5, Scene 1 Quotes

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio—a fellow of infinite jest… Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar?

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker), Horatio, Yorick
Related Symbols: Yorick’s Skull
Page Number: 5.1.190-198
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 5, Scene 2 Quotes

We defy augury. There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all.

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker), Horatio
Page Number: 5.2.233-237
Explanation and Analysis:

Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince,
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

Related Characters: Horatio (speaker), Hamlet
Page Number: 5.2.397-398
Explanation and Analysis: