Prosody
• The play is written in blank verse, or unrhymed iambic pentameter.
• Prose is used chiefly for low characters or to indicate madness. Note Hamlet's speeches when he is supposed to be mad or Ophelia's speeches in Act IV.
• Rhyming couplets and triplets are used for the players' speeches during their performance.
• Rhyming couplets are used to indicate the conclusion of a scene.
Images and Themes in Hamlet
• Illusion and reality (dream as shadow)
• The world as a stage and people as actors
• Corruption of the flesh and of the court; corruption lying beneath a placid surface
• The king's body as the state
• The flesh as site of corruption
• Death and the inevitability of mortality
• Holding a mirror up to nature so that characters can see the truth
• Madness, real and feigned, and rationality
• Masks, appearance and reality
• The innocence and duplicity of women
• Order and disorder;
• The disorder of nature and society when the chain of being is disrupted
• The disruption of order when natural authority is usurped.
• Concealment, secrecy, and spying
• The ironic fulfillment of plans and wishes
11. Revenge