Tuesday, May 21, 2013

What is the conceit(s) in Hamlet's first soliloquy in Act I, Scene 2?

In poetry, a conceit is an extended metaphor. Certainly in Hamlet's first soliloquy, there are some metaphors, but, as a whole, the speech does not have a single, continuous extended metaphor.


If this helps, here are the metaphors:


First Hamlet compares himself to water or ice:



O, that this too too sullied flesh would melt,


Thaw and resolve itself into a dew




Then he compares the world to a neglected garden:



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.




The rest of the soliloquy is a rant against his mother, Queen Gertrude.


So, although there are metaphors, comparisons, there is no single, controlling metaphor or conceit.

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