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"To be, or not to be" is a speech given by Prince Hamlet in the so-called "nunnery scene" of William Shakespeare's play Hamlet (Act 3, Scene 1). The speech is named for the opening phrase, itself among the most widely known and quoted lines in modern English literature, and has been referenced in many works of theatre, literature and music. In ...
The plot is the developing revelation of Hamlet's view of what is "rotten in the state of Denmark." The action of the play is driven forward in dialogue; but in the soliloquies time and action stop, the meaning of action is questioned, fog of illusion is broached, and truths are exposed.
The highlights of Hamlet, however, are not the action scenes, but the soliloquies, wherein Hamlet reveals his motives and thoughts to the audience. Also, unlike Shakespeare's other plays, there is no strong subplot; all plot forks are directly connected to the main vein of Hamlet's struggle to gain revenge.
The literal graveness of the situation (the funeral) subsides to the humor. This makes it possible for the characters to look at the subject of death objectively, giving rise to such speeches as Hamlet's musings over the skull of Yorick. The tone is set from the opening of the scene, during the Gravediggers' dialogue regarding Ophelia.
Under their referencing system, 3.1.55 means act 3, scene 1, line 55. References to the First Quarto and First Folio are marked Hamlet "Q1" and Hamlet "F1", respectively, and are taken from the Arden Shakespeare "Hamlet: the texts of 1603 and 1623" (Thompson and Taylor, 2006b). Their referencing system for "Q1" has no act breaks, so 7.115 means ...
The Hamlet of the supposed earlier play also uses his perceived madness as a guise to escape suspicion. Eliot believes that in Shakespeare's version, however, Hamlet is driven by a motive greater than revenge, his delay in exacting revenge is left unexplained, and that Hamlet's madness is meant to arouse the king's suspicion rather than avoid it.
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Still, by modern standards, it was a rather free adaptation of the original. Fortinbras was dropped, and the entire opening scene with the sentinels on the ramparts of the castle was excised. A love scene between Hamlet and Ophelia was added to the first act. Claudius does not send Hamlet to England, so Rosencrantz and Guildenstern do not die.