Hamlet Quote Essay

            “Though this be madness, yet there is method in't” now rephrased as “There is method in his madness” A line so short and simple but would reverberate forever in the minds of those who heard it. This famous line is said the character Polonius as an aside during his conversation with Prince Hamlet in Act II Scene II.  

This line reveals to the audience that a major character is discovering that Hamlet is not simply insane. Now that other characters in the story do not believe their original thoughts that the boy was losing it due to his grief and confusion Hamlet must change up his strategy. It can also be inferred Polonius the ever so wordy will pass this information onto Claudius and Gertrude. It is a clear indicator to the audience that Hamlet is not the confused and weak boy so many will say in reviews and poor analysis of him. He is a fairly static character set with a plan from the beginning only requiring he map out a course of action.

As for how this adds to the big picture of the story it serves as the summation of the entire story which is based on deceit and lies. The madness Hamlet exults is no more than a charade that continues until the death of the person who spoke the famous line. Once he kills Ophelia’s father the circumstance changes but the story does not. He is still like from early on pursuing his vengeance and trying to kill and damn Claudius.

Even before the first cold blooded act of homicide committed by the Prince the tone of the play grows darker as the scheme starts to become real. The deception was not all for naught as the supposed lunatic who is now depicted by the author through his actions and not mere details. Things from that point on become faster paced as Claudius now devises a plot to remove him from the country and eventually have him assassinated in England. Gertrude is frightened of her son who is now a murderer just like her newly wed husband.

In the end the quote, “Though this be madness, yet there is method in't” continues to be uttered and is known to most people even those that have not read Shakespeare. For Hamlet this marks a turning point for the storyline, characterization of Hamlet, and the tone of the play. From that point onward the play goes from Hamlet setting up his ambush to it rushing out of seemingly nowhere to until he can enact his revenge.       

Hamlet Essay: The Madman(?)

Hamlet is one of Shakespeare’s most famous plays; it is also one of the most open to interpretation. Modern viewers of the play see the protagonist as a nut job that experiences delusions such as the ghost of his father, is fickle in making his decision, and insane. All literature is open to personally interpretation, but these claims remain only bolstered by the fallacies of authority and popular opinion. Hamlet is none of these things people ascribe to him.

To understand the story we must look at it from its origin, England four hundred years ago. Not much is known of William Shakespeare’s life most of it is mystery and speculation. Looking at the beliefs of the people in the period Hamlet does not seem insane but to follow the norms of the time. This ghost is not a sign of schizophrenia, to the audience in the main religious sects this was a possibility, so the author is not portraying him as a lunatic. We also know the ghost isn’t just a figment of his own imagination because in the first scene the tower guards were able to see it too. Most of the antics he does are to mask the fact that he one knows about how Hamlet Senior actually died and two to deceive other characters into thinking he’s lost his mind where in reality it is a ploy. So he fools Polonius’ family into believing his lie by acting like a wild animal for Ophelia and with his pretty one-sided conversation with Polonius. From the standpoint of the characters he is mad but this is a trick the audience knows he is doing. And from the perspective of the audience with his visions of the dead and other now seen as mythological things was not absorbed as it is today.

Most commentary seems to follow the general assumption that the prince is indecisive. How can one determine if this is true or not? From reading the text we discover that the boy is fairly certain he will exact his revenge just not sure of how to do so without ending up dead himself. Having not arrived at the ending to witness the righteous moment of regicide we can infer only a few things. From the method he simply stabbed Polonius and disposed of his body assuming it was Claudius it’s fair to say that would be his original plan. Now that others are aware of his intent he may need to find a stealthier approach especially since the monarchs will now be paranoid they could be next. The ease he possessed during his killing of the royal advisor displayed that he did not hesitate to go through with the act. Not only through his actions in the middle of the play but in his words has he spoken to the audience of his want to avenge his father. This is not only said and shown but if we look at the plot wondering what Hamlet’s motives are then more of the events go from looking like insanity to a mastermind meticulously plotting the demise of Claudius.

As for questioning the psychology of the main character it is a play only the asides do they reveal their inner thoughts the rest is seen and not told. Those who accuse Hamlet of being a psychopath seem mislead since the scholars at the time didn’t understand almost anything about the human body or mind. Bleeding was the way to get better if you were sick. Many heroes outside of the saints for the contemporaries were warriors that did kill when they had to. So Hamlet’s actions were not seen as vile or cruel but just. As for how he feels about killing Claudius, a terrible person who is a murdered that poisoned his father and married his mother afterward, is empathetic. He does yearn to send him to Hell yet does not simply go on a rampage of the royal court and guards so he has to move slowly to hurt only who he wants to punish. This is not a mental problem it is genius.

By the end of a skim or spark notes reading Hamlet may appear to be a crazy boy who suffers from hallucinations, being undecided and mental problems. This however does not hold to scrutiny he does the things he must in the play for retribution of Hamlet Senior, to bamboozle other characters, and to hide his true motives. Hamlet is not insane, psychopathic, nor deranged. He is a regular young man facing his nadir; his life has changed dramatically, his father is gone, and a tyrant has taken his lineages throne. Making the choice of whether to dispose of Claudius is not the thing he spends so much time contemplating but how and when to do what needs to be done to restore the throne.     

Performative Utterance

"For much of the play Hamlet is able to speak but not do" – He knows what he wants to do but is stopped by his conscience and attempt to be surgical in killing only Claudius

The theory is centered on these main concepts

Lucutionary force the ability of a language to deliver a message, - the illocutionary force a mutual intelligibility and perlocutionary force that which is achieved by being said

Harold Bloom argues that the characters in Shakespeare's work develop through "self-overhearing"

The characters show their true selves to the audience unlike anything preceding it

This Performative Utterance is best displayed in the scene when Hamlet Senior, the ghost, converses with the young prince

When the person hell-bent on doing a thing does that it is classified as perlocutionary this is from the sheer utterance

Hamlet swore explicitly to remember his great father and implicitly to avenge his family’s pride by enacting his revenge on Claudius

Being too overdramatic can make the portrayal of the character seem unnatural or disingenuous to the viewers

The deluded Polonius thinks of himself to have mastered the “True Self” that Aristotle spoke of how all knowledge stems from self-knowledge

This character Polonius has the utterance and role that show mankind in his transition from the Dark Ages to Rebirth and towards Enlightenment

Hamlet is much more like a normal man today

Hamlet follows and judges himself much more than others this is pursuit of self-knowledge the Greeks spoke of

As a character Hamlet starts off as more faith and loyalty based and changes abruptly to action and consequence based

Vocabulary List Fall #6

abase - verb cause to feel shame; hurt the pride of
abdicate - verb give up, such as power, as of monarchs and emperors, or duties and obligations
abomination - noun an action that is vicious or vile; an action that arouses disgust or abhorrence; a person who is loathsome or disgusting; hate coupled with disgust
brusque - adj. marked by rude or peremptory shortness
saboteur - noun someone who commits sabotage or deliberately causes wrecks; a member of a clandestine subversive organization who tries to help a potential invader
debauchery - noun a wild gathering involving excessive drinking and promiscuity
proliferate - verb cause to grow or increase rapidly; grow rapidly
anachronism - noun an artifact that belongs to another time; a person who seems to be displaced in time; who belongs to another age; something located at a time when it could not have existed or occurred
nomenclature - noun a system of words used to name things in a particular discipline
expurgate - verb edit by omitting or modifying parts considered indelicate
bellicose - adj. having or showing a ready disposition to fight
gauche - adj. lacking social polish
rapacious - adj. excessively greedy and grasping; devouring or craving food in great quantities; living by preying on other animals especially by catching living prey
paradox - noun (logic) a statement that contradicts itself
conundrum - noun a difficult problem
anomaly - noun (astronomy) position of a planet as defined by its angular distance from its perihelion (as observed from the sun); a person who is unusual; deviation from the normal or common order or form or rule
ephemeral - adj. lasting a very short time; noun anything short-lived, as an insect that lives only for a day in its winged form
rancorous - adj. showing deep-seated resentment
churlish - adj. having a bad disposition; surly; rude and boorish
precipitous - adj. characterized by precipices; extremely steep;done with very great haste and without due deliberation

Canterbury Tales Essay

It seems almost impossible without directly asking the author the purpose of their writings. Chaucer is obviously long gone, but even if an author is alive they usually won’t give a concrete single reason behind their work especially fiction. Considering there is no definitive answer to a century’s old text like the “Canterbury Tales” I would draw the conclusion that the underlying motive seemed to be to inform people of life in Britain at the time, create a legacy of English literature, and showcase the disparities of folks in different walks of life yet how they all converge and interact. Given his position in court Chaucer was unique since he was one of the few that could witness this and tell of it. Others able to see this would be the clergy or nobility, these people may have interacted with lower caste but not associated so writing about them would have been questionable to say the least.

Chaucer’s work brought a new perspective to the people of the medieval world. His work is one of the few contemporary resources at the time to document the lives of regular people. The few literate people at the time were either in the clergy and nobility and focused on themselves. By describing the lives of the lesser people he was shattering the tradition at the time. Few societies even outside of Europe cared about the endeavors so this was revolutionary. Critics at the time would’ve viewed this as against the status quo of only mentioning the highest and most educated people in literature. Also being in the vernacular this opened the door to the less privileged to have something in their language that they could comprehend. Another thing this contributed to was a way that people who would be scorned by their peers for associating with other castes to understand what the other people experienced.

Previous tales from England at the time were being told in Latin, Gaelic, or other European languages, this was the first to be told and written down in Middle English which started the legacy of the English language. Other works of both fiction and nonfiction were retold orally but these were subject to change due to the evolving speech and differences by the raconteur. When this story finally put the words on paper ending the old tradition of only writing in Latin or French and started the new way that would be followed by more great authors in the centuries to come. This began a movement at the time to not only make new works in English but translate preexisting text which applied for most secular stories and even the Bible in 1611. Doing this fairly odd act at the time like publishing in the vernacular gave English writers that would live later on a source of inspiration and a chance to add to the cannon most notably Shakespeare.

Although the characters of this story all have different professions, social statuses, and acquaintances the Canterbury Tales shows how all sorts of people are brought together and interact. The majority of people in the story are walking contradictions the friar doesn’t care about charity but his own money, the cook that serves many people food is absolutely disgusting, and the squire descended of chivalrous blood lacks morals. Yet all these characters hear the same call of faith to meet in Canterbury. We see that along the way is what is retold, the journey not the final destination. Most stories before had one protagonist, one perspective, one motive; but this story can incorporate over 20 different protagonist. Not just through the host eyes can we see this plot unfold instead it is via everyone’s perspective which is underused in literature still today.

To sum it up Chaucer’s masterpiece the Canterbury Tales continues to be important because of how it vividly described life in England at the time for many different people, created the future foundation for all English literature, and portrayed how all kinds of individuals treat each other.      

Canterbury Tales Essay Outline

Thesis: Considering there is no definitive answer to a century’s old text like the “Canterbury Tales” I would draw the conclusion that the underlying motive seemed to be to inform people of life in Britain at the time, create a legacy of English literature, and showcase the disparities of folks in different walks of life yet how they all converge and interact.

First Body: Chaucer paints a vivid portrait of life in Feudal England by giving a voice and actions to groups generally frowned upon or not spoken about in the hierarchical structure.

Second Body: This great collection of stories would be a stepping stone in the English written tradition leading to future authors years after like Shakespeare, J.K. Rowling, etc.

Third Body: Display how many people from different circumstances share a similar human experience.

Conclusion: Restate thesis and incorporate ideas like the literary elements/techniques used some were irony, imagery, foreshadowing, etc.

THE POINT OF CANTERBURY TALES IS...

Thesis is Underlined

It seems almost impossible without directly asking the author the purpose of their writings. Chaucer is obviously long gone, but even if an author is alive they usually won’t give a concrete single reason behind their work especially fiction. Considering there is no definitive answer to a century’s old text like the “Canterbury Tales” I would draw the conclusion that the underlying motive seemed to be to inform people of life in Britain at the time, create a legacy of English literature, and showcase the disparities of folks in different walks of life yet how they all converge and interact. Given his position in court Chaucer was unique since he was one of the few that could witness this and tell of it. Others able to see this would be the clergy or nobility, these people may have interacted with lower caste but not associated so writing about them would have been questionable to say the least.