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The subject is holding in its right hand a human skull, echoing the scene in Shakespeare's Hamlet where the Prince of Denmark mourns Yorick ("Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him…"). The chimpanzee cradles its chin with a hand in a contemplative posture. Sitting with its left leg supporting the right, the right leg holds the calipers in its foot.
The skull was a symbol of melancholy for Shakespeare's contemporaries. [4] An old Yoruba folktale tells of a man who encountered a skull mounted on a post by the wayside. To his astonishment, the skull spoke. The man asked the skull why it was mounted there. The skull said that it was mounted there for talking.
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. [8]
Young Man with a Skull is an oil on canvas painting by the Dutch Golden Age painter Frans Hals, created in 1626-1628, now in the National Gallery, in London.The painting was previously thought to be a depiction of Shakespeare's Hamlet holding the skull of Yorick, but is now considered to be a vanitas, a reminder of the precarious nature of life and the inevitability of death.
Sonnet 60 is an English or Shakespearean sonnet.The Shakespearean sonnet contains three quatrains followed by a final rhyming couplet.It follows the form's typical rhyme, abab cdcd efef gg and is written a type of poetic metre called iambic pentameter based on five pairs of metrically weak/strong syllabic positions.
William Shakespeare (c. 23 [a] April 1564 – 23 April 1616) [b] was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. [3] [4] [5] He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard").
The Gravediggers (or Clowns) are examples of Shakespearean fools (also known as clowns or jesters), a recurring type of character in Shakespeare's plays. Like most Shakespearean fools, the Gravediggers are peasants or commoners that use their great wit and intellect to get the better of their superiors, other people of higher social status, and each other.
Sonnet 20 is one of the best-known of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare.Part of the Fair Youth sequence (which comprises sonnets 1-126), the subject of the sonnet is widely interpreted as being male, thereby raising questions about the sexuality of its author.