Hamlet Exam Soliloquys PDF

Hamlet Final Exam Study: Soliloquies You are responsible for understanding the speeches below in depth. You will receive one of them on your final exam. To study, you should a.​ Determine the context: When does the character speak these lines, in reaction to what? b.​ De...

Hamlet Final Exam Study: Soliloquies You are responsible for understanding the speeches below in depth. You will receive one of them on your final exam. To study, you should a.​ Determine the context: When does the character speak these lines, in reaction to what? b.​ Define unknown words (use the book’s glossary, notes from class, online sources) c.​ Paraphrase the speech phrase by phrase d.​ Determine the big ideas, especially if a speech shifts ideas e.​ Understand any figurative language (metaphor, analogy, simile, allusion) f.​ Be able to explain how the speech fits into the larger play--the plot in general or the character’s development. Read some paraphrases, but I highly recommend you create your own final paraphrase as the final act of studying. Hamlet Soliloquy: Act 1, Scene 2 O, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt, Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew, Or that the Everlasting had not fixed ​ 135 His canon ’gainst self-slaughter! O God, God, How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable Seem to me all the uses of this world! Fie on ’t, ah fie! ’Tis an unweeded garden That grows to seed. Things rank and gross in nature ​ 140 Possess it merely. That it should come to this: But two months dead—nay, not so much, not two. So excellent a king, that was to this Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother That he might not beteem the winds of heaven ​145 Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and Earth, Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him As if increase of appetite had grown By what it fed on. And yet, within a month (Let me not think on ’t; frailty, thy name is woman!), ​ 150 A little month, or ere those shoes were old With which she followed my poor father’s body, Like Niobe, all tears—why she, even she (O God, a beast that wants discourse of reason Would have mourned longer!), married with my ​155 uncle, My father’s brother, but no more like my father Than I to Hercules. Within a month, Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears Had left the flushing in her gallèd eyes, ​ 160 She married. O, most wicked speed, to post With such dexterity to incestuous sheets! It is not, nor it cannot come to good. But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.  Hamlet Final Exam Study: Soliloquies Claudius Soliloquy Act 3, Scene 3 O, my offense is rank, it smells to heaven; ​40 It hath the primal eldest curse upon ’t, A brother’s murder. Pray can I not, Though inclination be as sharp as will. My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent, And, like a man to double business bound, ​ 45 I stand in pause where I shall first begin And both neglect. What if this cursèd hand Were thicker than itself with brother’s blood? Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy ​ 50 But to confront the visage of offense? And what’s in prayer but this twofold force, To be forestallèd ere we come to fall, Or pardoned being down? Then I’ll look up. My fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer ​55 Can serve my turn? “Forgive me my foul murder”? That cannot be, since I am still possessed Of those effects for which I did the murder: My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen. May one be pardoned and retain th’ offense? ​ 60 In the corrupted currents of this world, Offense’s gilded hand may shove by justice, And oft ’tis seen the wicked prize itself Buys out the law. But ’tis not so above: There is no shuffling; there the action lies ​65 In his true nature, and we ourselves compelled, Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults, To give in evidence. What then? What rests? Try what repentance can. What can it not? Yet what can it, when one cannot repent? ​70 O wretched state! O bosom black as death! O limèd soul, that, struggling to be free, Art more engaged! Help, angels! Make assay. Bow, stubborn knees, and heart with strings of steel Be soft as sinews of the newborn babe. ​ 75 All may be well.  Hamlet Final Exam Study: Soliloquies Hamlet Soliloquy Act 2, Scene 2 Now I am alone. O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I! Is it not monstrous that this player here, But in a fiction, in a dream of passion, Could force his soul so to his own conceit 580 That from her working all his visage wanned, Tears in his eyes, distraction in his aspect, A broken voice, and his whole function suiting With forms to his conceit—and all for nothing! For Hecuba! 585 What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, That he should weep for her? What would he do Had he the motive and the cue for passion That I have? He would drown the stage with tears And cleave the general ear with horrid speech, 590 Make mad the guilty and appall the free, Confound the ignorant and amaze indeed The very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I, A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause, 595 And can say nothing—no, not for a king Upon whose property and most dear life A damned defeat was made. Am I a coward? Who calls me “villain”? breaks my pate across? Plucks off my beard and blows it in my face? 600 Tweaks me by the nose? gives me the lie i’ th’ throat As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this? Ha! ’Swounds, I should take it! For it cannot be But I am pigeon-livered and lack gall To make oppression bitter, or ere this 605 I should have fatted all the region kites With this slave’s offal. Bloody, bawdy villain! Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain! O vengeance! 610 Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave, That I, the son of a dear father murdered, Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell, Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words  Hamlet Final Exam Study: Soliloquies And fall a-cursing like a very drab, 615 A stallion! Fie upon ’t! Foh! About, my brains!—Hum, I have heard That guilty creatures sitting at a play Have, by the very cunning of the scene, Been struck so to the soul that presently 620 They have proclaimed their malefactions; For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak With most miraculous organ. I’ll have these players Play something like the murder of my father Before mine uncle. I’ll observe his looks; 625 I’ll tent him to the quick. If he do blench, I know my course. The spirit that I have seen May be a devil, and the devil hath power T’ assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps, Out of my weakness and my melancholy, 630 As he is very potent with such spirits, Abuses me to damn me. I’ll have grounds More relative than this. The play’s the thing Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.