Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Yorick is an unseen character in William Shakespeare's play Hamlet. He is the dead court jester whose skull is exhumed by the First Gravedigger in Act 5, Scene 1, of the play. The sight of Yorick's skull evokes a reminiscence by Prince Hamlet of the man, who apparently played a role during Hamlet's upbringing: Alas, poor Yorick!
William Shakespeare's play Hamlet has contributed many phrases to common English, from the famous "To be, or not to be" to a few less known, but still in everyday English. Some also occur elsewhere (e.g. in the Bible) or are proverbial. All quotations are second quarto except as noted:
Hamlet picks up the skull, saying "Alas, poor Yorick" as he contemplates mortality. Ophelia's funeral procession approaches, led by Laertes. Hamlet and Horatio initially hide, but when Hamlet realizes that Ophelia is the one being buried, he reveals himself, proclaiming his love for her.
This category is for English phrases which were invented by Shakespeare, and older phrases which were notably used in his works. ... Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him ...
The two most iconic moments in the play ― the Act III, scene 1 "To be or not to be" speech and the Act V, scene 1 image of Hamlet contemplating the skull of Yorick – may be linked when the play is remembered, but the two moments occur in different acts of the play.
Ubi sunt poetry also figures in some of Shakespeare's plays. When Hamlet finds skulls in the Graveyard (V. 1), these rhetorical questions appear: Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath bore me on his back a thousand times, and now how abhorr'd in my imagination it is! my gorge rises ...
From "Alas, poor Yorick!" (V.i): Alas! Poor Yorick!, 1913 film starring Fatty Arbuckle "Alas, Poor Maling", 1940 short story by Graham Greene; Alas Poor Yagan, 1997 editorial cartoon by Dean Alston; Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace (V.i) Infinite Jest, album by We Are The Fury (V.i) The Quick and the Dead, 1995 film by Sam Raimi (V.i)
The novel gets its name from Hamlet, Act V, Scene 1, in which Hamlet holds the skull of the court jester, Yorick, and says, "Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is!" [18]