Hamlet - A Double Edged Soliloquy

Hamlet – the myth, the legend, the book I am reading in English Class. In almost everyone’s educational career they must read Hamlet (at least once) and contemplate the many layers of meaning it contains. It is one of the most prolific pieces of literature in the English language, as well as the most preformed play in the world (above is the famous image of Hamlet with the skull from the 1948 Hamlet film starring Sir Lawrence Olivier as Hamlet). There are many different critical approaches that can be used to examine and interpret Hamlet. In an attempt to keep this a post and not a novel, I will examine the soliloquy at the end of Act 4 Scene 4 (lines 33-69) from a formalist and a mythic approach, and then examine each approach itself.

From a Formalist perspective, the movement in this passage from logic to violence and perhaps madness is one worth examining. Throughout the soliloquy, Hamlet continues in iambic pentameter and keeps up metaphors including sleep as death and inaction and cowardice in life as living as a beast. There is also the parallelism between Hamlet and Prince Fortinbras, comparing the action coupled with purpose in Fortinbras with the actionless purpose of Hamlet. All of these structural ornaments show that Hamlet is at this point thinking intelligently and thoughtfully, however, as he finishes and with apparent logic concludes that, "from this time forth/My thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth!" (4.4.68-69), it is unclear as to whether he has crossed the line of sanity into madness. When this logical thought progression with all the ornamentation and appearance of a sane person in the play transforms near the end of the soliloquy into a conclusion that many people would consider not logical or sane, Shakespeare makes us question both what it is to be sane and insane, and what that might look like.

From a Mythical perspective, Hamlet throughout the soliloquy examines what it is to exist and to be human. Hamlet asks near the beginning of the soliloquy, "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 godlike reason/to fust in us unused." (4.4.35-41). Hamlet examines the meaning in his life by comparing it to the life of a beast, where one only sleeps and eats and has no meaning. He states that, "I do not know/Why yet I live to say 'This things to do,' " and by that Hamlet concludes that being alive without fulfilling his purpose is not really living at all (4.4.46-47). Then, with the parallelism of Fortinbras fulfilling his purpose even if it puts his life at risk while Hamlet does not do this, Hamlet's thoughts of the relationship between purpose and real life are cemented. When Hamlet ends with "from this time forth/My thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth!" he shows his determination to fulfill his violent purpose in life because living is about fulfilling purpose rather than just staying alive (4.4.68-69).

With these two perspectives two different parts of the soliloquy can be excavated; but neither is more right than the other. Using only one would be sufficient, but Shakespeare deserves more! Both approaches, and others I did not use, unveil another layer of meaning in each part of Hamlet, so using them all in conjunction can warrant the most fulfilling reading of Hamlet. I am not sure if I even believed that before examining this passage with different approaches, but I definitely do now!

Well, that is my two cents. Let me know what you think!