Reaction Journal--Hamlet Quote I,I:158 Marcellus talking to Horatio: “Some say that ever ’gainst that season comes/Wherein our Savior’s birth is celebrated,/This bird of dawning singeth all night long,/And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad,/The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike,/No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm./So hallowed and so gracious is that time. Horatio: “So I have heard and do in part believe it./ But look, the morn in russet mantle clad/Walks o’er the dew of yon high eastward hill.” Your commentary/reaction I like the imagery of this exchange and the idea of this folk belief that somehow, about Eastertime, the nights are holy and safe from evil. How would it be! Horatio sort of believes, which goes along with his rational view. His soul, however, has poetry in it, nonetheless, judging from his imagery about dawn.

Quote I,ii:77 Hamlet to his mother when we first meet him: “Seems, madam? Nay, it is. I know not ‘seems.’/ Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,/ nor customary suits of solemn black,/Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,/No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,/Nor the dejected havior of the visage,/Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,/That can denote me truly. These indeed seem,/For they are actions that a man might play,/But I have that within which passeth show--/These but the trappings and the suits of woe.” annotation/reaction Hamlet really is reacting as a young guy might react— really pretty much over emphasizing his own view of himself and how he is mourning his father. I wonder if the actor who played the original Hamlet was a young guy? In too many versions he looks too old. He needs to be early 20’s at latest to carry off these post teen moments of taking himself so seriously.

Quote I,ii:129 Hamlet soliloquy “O that this too too sullied flesh would melt,/ Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew,/Or that the Everlasting had not fixed/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/Possess it merely…” Annotation/Reaction wouldn’t it be nice if extra “solid flesh” would melt into a dew! Hamlet is really DEPRESSED!!! I think this imagery expresses so well the grayness and despair one feels. The rhythm helps imprint this phrasing in my mind. He’s suicidal, but he captures real depression in the yucky garden image and that one really good phrase (weary, stale, etc)