| Allegory | Literary work with 2 or more levels of meaning (Literal and symbolic)Example: Hamlet’s costume changes |
| Allusion | Reference to a well-known person, place, event, literary work, or work of artExample: “I did enact Julius Caesar. I was killed i’ the’ Capitol; Brutus killed me.” Act 3 Scene 2 |
| Ambiguity | Effect created when words suggest and support 2 or more divergent interpretationsExample: Hamlet’s indecision in the first soliloquy Act 1 Scene 2 |
| Climax | High point of interest in literary work; where protagonist changes understanding; Sometimes goes along with resolutionExample: Hamlet stabbing Polonius Act 3 Scene 4 |
| Conflict | Struggle between opposing Example: Conflict over Hamlet’s father’s death with Gertrude and Claudius |
| Connotation | Associations that words call to mindExample: When Hamlet dies alongside Laretes, Gertrude, Claudius Act 5 Scene 2 |
| Couplet | Pair of rhyming lines in the same meterExample: “Foul deeds will rise, Though all the earth’s o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes.” Act 1 Scene 3 |
| Epiphany | Moment of insight where a character realizes the truthExample: When Hamlet is on a ship sailing to England.”there is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we may.”Act 5 Scene 2 |
| Hyperbole | Exaggeration or overstatement Example: “A murderer and a villain,A slave that is not twentieth part the titheOf thy precedent lord”Act 3 Scene 4 |
| Iambic Pentameter | a foot with one unstressed syllable marked with a slanted line. These stressed syllables are divided by vertical lines into groups (Also can be called blank verse)Example: “O that this too too solid flesh would melt,Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!Or that the Everlasting had not fix’dHis canon ‘gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God!” Act 1 Scene 2 |
| Dramatic Irony | A contradiction between what a character thinks and what the reader or audience knows to be trueExample: Occurs because only the Ghost and we know the truth that Claudius murdered Hamlet’s father |
| Situation Irony | An event that occurs that directly contradicts expectationsExample: The swords being switched and Laertes dying by the poison intended for Hamlet Act 5 Scene 2 |
| Verbal Irony | Used to suggest the opposite if their usual meaning Example: Hamlet’s Conversations throughout the book |
| Metaphor | A figure of speech in which one thing is spoken of as though it were something else.Example: “Therefore I have entreated him alongWith us to watch the minutes of this night”Act 1 Scene 1 |
| Paradox | A statement that seems to be contradictory but that actually presents a truthExample: I must be cruel to be kind.”Act 3 Scene 4 |
| Personification | A figure of speech in which a nonhuman subject is given human characteristicsExample: “For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak. With most miraculous organ” Act 2 scene 2 |
| Setting | The time and place of an action of literary workExample: Late middle ages (14th and 15th centuries, or 1300 to 1499) in and around (mostly) the royal palace in Elsinore, a city in Denmark. |
| Simile | A figure of speech that compares two unlike things using like or asExample: The Ghost says, “Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres” Act 1 Scene 5 |
| Soliloquy | A long speech in a play or in a prose work made by character who is alone and thus reveals private thoughts and feelings to the audience or readerExample: “To be or not to be-that is the question..”Act 3 Scene 1 |
| Symbol | A sign, word, phrase, image, or other object that stands for or represents something elseExample: Yorick’s skullAct 5 Scene 1 |
| Theme | The central idea, concern, or purpose in a literary workExample: Revenge and justice; Hamlet trying to get revenge on Claudius |
| Tragedy | A type of drama or literature that shows the downfall or destruction of a noble or outstanding personExample: Death of Hamlet Act 5 scene 2 |
Hamlet: Literary Terms and Examples
August 1, 2019