Key:

Hyperbole ​Consonance/Alliteration ​Assonance ​Exclamation ​Parallelism ​Personification ​End Rhyme ​Allusion​ Metaphor ​Rhetorical Question

190 HAMLET​ ​[​taking the skull​] Let me see. Alas, poor (1) ​Exclamation:​ Emphasizes the plight of Yorick and his

Yorick​! (1)​ I knew him, Horatio—a fellow of ​infinite demise

jest​, of most excellent fancy. He hath bore me on his (2) ​Hyperbole:​ Emphasizes how jestful Yorick was in life and

back a​ thousand times(3)​, and now​ how abhorred(4)​ in draws attention to his career as a jester

my ​imagination it is(5)​!(6)​ My gorge rises at it. ​Here hung(7) (3) ​Hyperbole:​ Shows how impactful Yorick was on Hamlet,

195 those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. and Hamlet’s fondness and connection with Yorick

Where be ​your gibes now​?​ your gambols​?​ your (4) ​Consonance: ​Shows how with death one that was loved

songs​?​ your flashes(8)​ of merriment that were wont to becomes one that may be loathed

set the table on a roar​?​ Not one now to mock your (5) ​Assonance:​ Draws attention to Hamlet’s image of the past

own grinning​?​ Quite chapfallen​?(9)​ Now get you to my and the time when Yorick was alive

200 lady’s chamber, and tell her, ​let her paint an inch (6) ​Exclamation: ​Emphasizes the comparison of Yorick’s

thick(10),​ to this favor she must come. Make her laugh impact when he was alive versus him being dead. It also

at that.—Prithee, Horatio, tell me one thing. shows the drastic change in Hamlet’s feelings of loving and

disliking Yorick
...
(7) ​Alliteration: ​Short, clipped sounds relay sorrow

(8) ​Parallelism:​ Emphasizes Yorick’s personality when he was

alive and how impactful it was on Hamlet

 (9) ​Rhetorical Questions:​ Displays Hamlet’s inquisitivity

regarding how such an energetic man is transformed in death

(10) ​Implied Metaphor:​ Compares makeup to paint,

emphasizing women’s need to cover the same way a jester

would hide his true feelings with songs and jokes

HAMLET Dost ​thou think(11)​ ​Alexander(12) ​looked o’ this (11) ​Alliteration with thou-think:​ Displays Hamlet’s confusion

205 fashion i’ th’ earth? how a king could end up like a jester

(12) ​Allusion to Alexander the Great from ancient Greece:

…
Emphasizes how any one, no matter how influential in life, are

lowly in death

HAMLET To what base uses we may return, Horatio​! (13) ​Personification of imagination:​ Expresses Hamlet’s

210 Why may not ​imagination trace(13)​ the noble dust of progression of thought when imagining the journey of

Alexander(14)​ till he find it stopping a bunghole? Alexander’s remains to a place as undignified a bunghole.

(14) ​Repetition of Alexander Allusion:​ Further draws attention

to Hamlet’s comparison of a higher class person ending up in

the same location as someone born into a low class

HORATIO ’​Twere to consider too curiously to consider (15) ​Alliteration with consider-curiously-consider and

so.(15) ‘Twere-to-too-to:​ Dexterity of pronunciation shows Horatio’s

 effort in understanding Hamlet and the complexity of the

subject

HAMLET No, faith, not a jot; but to follow him thither, (16) ​Alliteration:​ ​Drawn out “L”s emphasize Hamlet effort in

215 with modesty enough and ​likelihood to lead (16)​ it, as explaining his thoughts to Horatio

thus: ​Alexander​ died, ​Alexander​ was buried,​ Alexander(17) (17) ​Repetition of Alexander Allusion​: Shows the progression of

​returneth to dust; the dust is earth (18)​; of earth Alexander’s death and how after his death he became dust just

we make loam(19)​; and why of that loam whereto he like anyone else would have

was converted might they not stop a ​beer barrel(20)​? (18)​ Biblical Allusions: ​Genesis 3:19, Genesis 2:7, and

200 Imperious ​Caesar(21)​, dead and turned to ​clay​, Ecclesiastes 12:7​ all show the belief that everyone is made

Might stop a hole to keep the wind ​away​. from dust and in death our bodies return to the form that all

O, that that​ earth which kept the world(22)​ in ​awe creatures were made from as their souls go to heaven

Should patch a wall t’ expel the winter’s ​flaw(23)​! (19) ​Modified Parallelism:​ Lines containing this show how

simple death may become as living things go through the cycle

of living to death to dust and eventually back to living

(20) ​Alliteration: ​Connection to aforementioned “bunghole”,

repeated “b” sound emphasizes crude nature of a beer barrel

and show how little a person’s life matters once they are dead

and buried.
(21) ​Allusion to Julius Caesar: ​Expands spectrum of those

equal in death and references one of Shakespeare’s other

plays

(22) ​Personification of earth: ​Gives evidence how Earth’s cycle

of life and death makes everyone, especially Hamlet,

philosophize and wonder about death being what causes

equality

(23) ​End Rhyme​ ​with clay-away & awe-flaw:​ Adds a poignant

feeling with the results of Hamlet’s thoughts about death being

the ultimate equalizer