Hamlet Group

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hooker
hooker
Student
High School - 12th Grade

Broadly describe how Hamlet expresses his melancholy in his first soliloquy.

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Posted by hooker on Monday April 27, 2009 at 10:27 PM and tagged with hamlet, william shakespeare.

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  1. anewby1 Student
    College - Senior

    It is clear that in Hamlet's first soliloquy he is experiencing a good deal of depression.  Lines 129 through 137 clearly show that Hamlet is experiencing melancholy.  He states, "[h]ow [weary], stale, flat, and unprofitable / [s]eem to me all the uses of this world," (I.ii.133-34) showing that he has lost interest in everything.  He uses a metaphor of the world being "an unweeded garden / [t]hat grows to seed, things rank and gross in nature / [p]ossess it merely," (I.ii.135-37).  After he admits the reason for his melancholy-the unexpected death of his father and his mother's hasty marriage-he says, "[i]t is not, nor it cannot come to good, / [b]ut break my heart," (I.ii.158-59), showing he has lost all hope.

    Shakespeare, William.  Hamlet.  Bedford/St. Martain's: Boston, 1994.

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    Posted by anewby1 on Wednesday April 29, 2009 at 11:04 AM