Hamlet Act II Activity
Figurative Language in Act I & II: Personification and Apostrophe
Personification: to give human characteristics to inanimate or nonhuman things. Ex. Love is blind or The hands of fortune
Apostrophe: is to address a person or abstract idea directly although it is not or cannot be present. Ex. Death, be not proud
or Twinkle, Twinkle little star, How I wonder where you are?
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Directions: Read the following passages from the play. Decide whether each is personification or apostrophe. Then, working with
your group, review each passage within the context of the play and interpret the meaning of the passage and the effect of the use of
figurative language.
1. Horatio referring to the coming dawn (Act I, scene i):
But look, the morn in russet mantel clad
Walks o’er the dew of yon high eastward hill.
2. Hamlet swearing to avenge his father’s death (Act I, scene v):
So uncle, there you are. Now to my word;
It is, adieu, remember me.
I have sworn’t.
3. Hamlet reflecting on his mother’s marriage (Act I, scene ii):
It is not, nor it cannot come to good,
But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.
4. The First Player reciting his speech about Pyrrhus’ defeat of Priam (Act II, scene ii):
Out, out, thou strumpet Fortune! All you gods,
In general synod take away her power,
Break all the spokes and fellies of her wheel,
And bowl the round knave down the hill of heaven
As low as fiends
5. Polonius advising Laertes (Act I, scene iii):
Give they thoughts no tongue
Nor any unproportioned thoughts his act.
6. Hamlet formulating a plan to use the players (Act II, scene ii):
…I have heard
That guilty creatures sitting at play
Have by the cunning of the scene
Been struck so to soul, that presently
They have proclaimed their malefactions.
For murder, thought it have no tongue, will speak.
With most miraculous organ.
7. Polonius advising Ophelia not to encourage Hamlet’s pursuit of her: (Act I, scene ii):
..In few Ophelia,
Do not believe his vows, for they are brokers
Not of that dye which their investments show,
But are implorators of unholy suits,
Breaking like sanctified and holy bonds
The better to beguile.
8. Hamlet responding to the ghost’s story (Act I, scene v):
O all you lost of heaven! O earth! What else?
And hall I couple hell? O fie! Hold, hold my heart,