| “Give first admittance to the ambassadors; My news shall be the fruit to that great feast” | metaphor |
| “Whereon old Norway, overcome with joy, gives him threescore thousand crowns in annual fee, and his commission to employ those soldiers” | metonymy (old Norway = substitute for uncle of Fortinbras) |
| “Words, words, words” | epizeuxis |
| “Doubt thou the stars are fire, doubt that the sun doth move, doubt truth to be a liar, but never doubt I love” | anaphora |
| “Black as his purpose, did not night resemble…Hath not this dread and black complexion smear’d with heraldy more dismal…Roasted in wrath and fire, and thus oversized with coagulate gore, like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus” | allusion |
| “For murther, though it hath no tongue, will speak with most miraculous organ” | personification |
| “The play’s the thing wherein I’ll catch the conscience of king” | heroic couplet |
| “That he’s mad, ’tis true, ’tis true ’tis pity, and pity ’tis ’tis true − a foolish figure” | mesodiplosis |
| “except my life, except my life, except my life” | isocolon |
| “Which done, she took the fruits of my advice” | metaphor |
| “O, there has been much throwing about of brains” | synecdoche |
| “Denmark’s a prison” | metaphor |
| “O Jephthah, judge of Israel, what a treasure hadst thou!” | allusion |
| “Thanks Rosencrantz and gently Guildenstern. Thanks Guildenstern and gently Rosencrantz” | chiasmus |
| “Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell, must like a ***** unpack my heart with words” | simile |
| “I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw” | paradox |
| “Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth” | oxymoron |
| “But I am pigeon-livered and lack gall to make oppression bitter” | hyperbole |
| “That I, the son of a dear father murder’d,Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell” | antithesis |
| “A demand defeat was mad. Am I a coward?” | assonance |
Hamlet Act II Literary Devices
July 10, 2019