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TSR Wiki > Study Help > Subjects and Revision > Revision Notes > English > Hamlet - Sweet Prince or Arrant Knave?
Sweet Prince
- He mourns for his father and is true to his feelings – “I know not seems”
- Discusses issues of divorce and marriage with Horatio – he is courteous to other men.
- “tis sweet and commendable Hamlet to give these mourning duties to thy father”
- “I shall in all my best obey you madam” – respects his mother
- self pity – “o what a rogue and peasant slave am I” – self reproach.
- Has no other way to express himself than through soliloquies – “unpack my heart with words”
- Impersonal soliloquy “to be or not to be” – self analysis and reflection
- Loves Ophelia “I did love you once” “I loved Ophelia, forty thousand brothers with all their quantity of love could not make up my sum”
- Respectful of the dead – “has this fellow no feeling of his business, that ‘a sings at grave making?”
- Adored by the ‘distracted multitude’ – Ophelia, Horatio, Gertrude etc. “oh what a noble mind is overthrown”
- “The queen his mother lives almost by his looks”
- he is a structural contrast to the rash revengers Laertes and Fortinbras.
- Delays his final revenge – “now I might do it”
- Stoic acceptance of his fate “let be” “readiness is all” “tell my story”
Arrant Knave
- “antic disposition” – sly and cunning
- uses puns“a little more than kin, a little less than kind” “you are a fishmonger”
- Killed Rosencrantz and Guildenstern without remorse – “they are not near my conscience”
- Sexual references towards Ophelia – “it would cost you a groaning to take off mine edge” “did you think I meant country matters?”
- Plays Polonius to be a fool – “methinks it is a weasel” “it is backed like a weasel”. Does the same to Osric when discussing if it is hot or cold.
- Scares Ophelia with his madness “as if he had been loosed out of hell to speak of horrors”
- Misogynistic – “get thee to a nunnery” “as womans love” “frailty thy name is woman”
- Violence – “contagion to this world, now I can drink hot blood.”
- Wants Claudius to suffer – prolongs the murder “that would be scanned: a villain kills my father and for that, I his sole son do this same villain send to heaven”
- Disrespectful to his mother – “a bloody deed, almost as bad good mother, as kill a king and marry with his brother.”
Important points
Hamlet swings from SW to AK after his run in with the pirates – he no longer uses soliloquies and is far more decisive.
Context
In the 18th and 19th centuries, Hamlet was seen as the iconic, Byronic hero. In the 20th Century however, the thinking is more Freudian and psychological – the reactions to Hamlet are more sceptic.
LC Knights says that Hamlet has a “sterile concentration on death and evil.”
Comments
Originally posted by BeckySparrow on TSR Forums.
