Hamlet 1.1 Figurative language

“Angels and ministers of grace, defend us! invocation He is terrified and is calling out for protection from the supernatural
Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold yourself. metaphor He is scared and is asking whomever or whatever is approaching to make him/her/itself known, like a letter removed from an envelope would.
Horatio says ’tis but our fantasy,And will not let belief take hold of him personification He is fighting against belief in the ghost as if the notion of belief were a hoodlum that is trying to jump him.
That if again this apparition come, He may approve our eyes and speak to it. metonymy If the ghost comes he will agree with their testmony, which is associated with the eyes which gave them the image of the ghost.
And let us once again assail your ears, That are so fortified against our story conceit He refuses to hear, so we must insist on our story with as much strength as we would use to fight a battle/
When yond same star that’s westward from the pole/Had made his course to illume that part of heaven/Where now it burns, personification The star was in that same spot last night when the ghost appeared.
Most like: it harrows me with fear and wonder. metaphor it torments him like a rake does to the the soil, making him terrified and hypnotized at the same time.
that fair and warlike form In which the majesty of buried Denmark /Did sometimes march? metonymy He is afraid that the ghost has taken over the body of the dead king, who was closely associated with the State, which is figuratively buried with him.
whose sore task Does not divide the Sunday from the week; personification The task itself is the persona that is failing to show proper religious observance.
this sweaty haste Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day: personification the need for speed is a taskmaster forcing a personified day to work side by side with the night.
young Fortinbras, Of unimproved mettle hot and full, metaphor The young prince is not battle tested, but is like hot boiling metal that has yet to be made into anything of use.
Hath in the skirts of Norway here and there Shark’d up a list of lawless resolutes, metaphor This is a mixed metaphor in which his recruiting of troops is compared to the viciousness of a shark but at the same time is finding them in Norway as if hiding behind the folds of a mother’s dress.
In the most high and palmy state of Rome,A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,The graves stood tenantless and the sheeted deadDid squeak and gibber in the Roman streets:As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,Disasters in the sun; and the moist starUpon whose influence Neptune’s empire standsWas sick almost to doomsday with eclipse: Hyperbole– He fears that the ghost is an omen like that foretelling the fall of Caesar, but the empty graves with gibbering dead bodies and astronomical pyrotechnics seems a bit far-fetched.
A mote it is to trouble the mind’s eye. metaphor- He compares the ghost, with its ominous form to an irritating dust speck that gets into an eye, but here the action is done to the brain.
Or if thou hast uphoarded in thy lifeExtorted treasure in the womb of earth,For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death,Speak of it: Metaphor– Uncertain of the purpose of the ghost’s visitation, he offers the possibility of some secret treasure that has been hidden in the ground, a child that must come out from its mother so that the spirit may rest in peace.
July 29, 2019