Hamlet Essay Quotes

Quote:

• What is a man,
  If his chief good and market of his time
  Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.
  Sure he that made us with such large discourse,
  Looking before and after, gave us not
  That capability and god-like reason
  To fust in us unused.

Hamlet by Shakespeare was not about a mad prince. It was about an elaborate plan thought up by a prince to get revenge for his father's death. The only madness or doubt in hamlet's words were to be or not to be.  This is evident through the characterization of Hamlet, the tone of the author, and the plot.

In the quote above Hamlet is frustrated with himself for not acting. By not acting he is like a beast that only eats and sleeps. Anybody mad would never think this way. If he were mad he would not be worried about taking action, his suicidal mentality would want him to stop doing everything. Throughout the play we see hamlet grow and become more confrontational, direct, and taking more drastic actions. He goes from over thinking things to being a avenger in the name of his father. Nobody mad would go through this growth. We also can tell through the way that his language has double meanings that when he acts mad he actually has something to say that only the audience could get through because we know Hamlet's thoughts.

The tone of the author and the way Shakespeare chose to portray this character shows that Hamlet was not mad and really had a meaning behind his words. The author chooses Hamlet to be one of the only characters in the play to use iambic pentameter as well as the choice of words hamlet uses has a higher feel than everybody else's. Even when hamlet is acting mad, Shakespeare places him at a higher social status in the play as if though he is above everybody else.

Through the plot of the play we once again see hamlet's growth, but we also see the character's also realizing that he has more sanity than they thought at first. They also begin to fear him more as the play goes on until it is time to kill him. The whole plot leading up until Hamlet's death is just Hamlet's growth and his validity increasing to the whole audience.

Overall the literary elements of the play all add to the strength of the argument that hamlet is not mad, and that he is a growing relative character.  

The most unromantic love song

 "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot 

S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma percioche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.

 

Let us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherized upon a table;

Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,

The muttering retreats

Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels

And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:

Streets that follow like a tedious argument

Of insidious intent

To lead you to an overwhelming question ...

Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”

Let us go and make our visit. 

 

 

In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,

The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,

Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,

Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,

Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,

Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,

And seeing that it was a soft October night,

Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time

For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,

Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;

There will be time, there will be time

To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;

There will be time to murder and create,

And time for all the works and days of hands

That lift and drop a question on your plate;

Time for you and time for me,

And time yet for a hundred indecisions,

And for a hundred visions and revisions,

Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time

To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”

Time to turn back and descend the stair,

With a bald spot in the middle of my hair —

(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)

My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,

My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin —

(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)

Do I dare

Disturb the universe?

In a minute there is time

For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:

Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;

I know the voices dying with a dying fall

Beneath the music from a farther room.

               So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—

The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,

And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,

When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,

Then how should I begin

To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?

               And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—

Arms that are braceleted and white and bare

(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)

Is it perfume from a dress

That makes me so digress?

Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.

               And should I then presume?

               And how should I begin?

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets

And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes

Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? ...

I should have been a pair of ragged claws

Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!

Smoothed by long fingers,

Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers,

Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.

Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,

Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?

But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,

Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,

I am no prophet — and here’s no great matter;

I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,

And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,

And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,

After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,

Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,

Would it have been worth while,

To have bitten off the matter with a smile,

To have squeezed the universe into a ball

To roll it towards some overwhelming question,

To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,

Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—

If one, settling a pillow by her head

               Should say: “That is not what I meant at all;

               That is not it, at all.”

And would it have been worth it, after all,

Would it have been worth while,

After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,

After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—

And this, and so much more?—

It is impossible to say just what I mean!

But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:

Would it have been worth while

If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,

And turning toward the window, should say:

               “That is not it at all,

               That is not what I meant, at all.”

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;

Am an attendant lord, one that will do

To swell a progress, start a scene or two,

Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,

Deferential, glad to be of use,

Politic, cautious, and meticulous;

Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;

At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—

Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old ... I grow old ...

I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind?   Do I dare to eat a peach?

I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves

Combing the white hair of the waves blown back

When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea

By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown

Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

To this point in my life this poem is probably my favorite modernist poem ever written just because it leaves me with such a puzzle. I paints all these scenes and doesn't give you a theme instead it just leaves you wondering and finding your own answers. Every time I read this I get a new perpective and insight on the poem I didn't see before. 

Poetry Collides

Summons
by Robert Francis

Keep me from going to sleep too soon
Or if I go to sleep too soon
Come wake me up. Come any hour
Of night. Come whistling up the road.
Stomp on the porch. Bang on the door.
Make me get out of bed and come
And let you in and light a light.
Tell me the northern lights are on
And make me look. Or tell me clouds
Are doing something to the moon
They never did before, and show me.
See that I see. Talk to me till
I'm half as wide awake as you
And start to dress wondering why
I ever went to bed at all.
Tell me the walking is superb.
Not only tell me but persuade me.
You know I'm not too hard persuaded. 

The Place Where We Are Right
by Yehuda Amichai

From the place where we are right
Flowers will never grow
In the spring.
The place where we are right
Is hard and trampled
Like a yard.
But doubts and loves
Dig up the world
Like a mole, a plow.
And a whisper will be heard in the place
Where the ruined
House once stood.

Poetry isn't all made the same which is pretty obvious to anyone who has ever read two poems and understood what they meant. They do share many similarities however and aren't always all that different. there are some similarities and differences between "Summons" by Robert Francis and "The Place Where We Are Right" by Yehuda Amichai.

One similarity that can be noticed by the first words picked for each verse of the poems. They are all these powerful nouns or verbs. The authors don't waste a word by beginning a verse with filler words like "the, there, A", or any unnecessary expansive language. they get right to the point in there literature and that gives much power to there words. Both authors also artfully decide how much to put on a verse. Some contain two sentences, others have fragments of a sentence. Others include a sentence but they finish in the following line. However they all are written in a style that shows you how the author wrote it and thought it the way it is written reflex the authors train of thought and stream of conscientiousness.

The poems are very different however. "Summons" describes to me like a call for help. Some one is asking to be persuaded as if all that they really need is the attention and a sign that some one else cares about him doing something. It is very vague, but it illustrates a feeling that some people have felt before. It almost feels at time like the author is immature and won't take responsibility for himself but could really also be in a hole that he needs help getting out of.

The other poem "The Place Where We Are Right" describes the reality of always being right and never accepting other answers and other ideas. This is the land of the ignorant, where people are given the choice to see a new perpective but choose not to because they are always right and don't need and alternate answer. They choose to be close minded because they are always right and they create a place of ruin as described by the poem.

Obviously these poems have very different themes, tones, mood and feel, but we did find some similarities that can be seen also in many other poems and poetry.

transmedia poem collaborative work

Transmedia Poetry Summons by Robert Francis
 "Keep me from going to sleep too soon" Like this:

"Or if I go to sleep too soon
Come wake me up. Come any hour
 Of night." Sounds like he wants this:

 "Come whistling up the road.
 Stomp on the porch. Bang on the door."

wikiHow: How to Kick Down a Door"
Make me get out of bed and come
 And let you in and light a light.

 Tell me the northern lights are on
And make me look.

 Or tell me clouds
Are doing something to the moon
They never did before, and show me.

 See that I see. Talk to me till
I'm half as wide awake as you
And start to dress wondering why I ever went to bed at all."
Why Do We Need Sleep?
"Tell me the walking is superb.
Quotes about walking:
 “All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, Or, How to Philosophize With the Hammer “I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.” ― John Muir, John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir "My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was sixty. She's ninety-seven now, and we don't know where the heck she is." ― Ellen DeGeneres

"Not only tell me but persuade me.
You know I'm not too hard persuaded."