Hamlet

The College Board, Advanced Placement Examination, English Literature and Composition, 1997. Section II, Question 1. Total time: 2 hours. Suggested time: 40 minutes. This question counts as one-third of the total essay section score.

Read the following soliloquy from Hamlet carefully. Then write a well-organized essay in which you explain how formal elements such as structure, syntax, diction, and imagery reveal the speaker’s attitude toward his own situation.

O all you host of heaven! O earth! What else?
And shall I couple hell? Hold, hold, my heart!
And you, my sinews, grow not instant old,
But bear me stiffly up. Remember thee?
Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat
In this distracted globe. Remember thee?
Yea, from the table of my memory
I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records,
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past,
That youth and observation copied there,
And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,
Unmixed with baser matter. Yes, by heaven!
O most pernicious woman!
O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!
My tables—meet it is I set it down
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain.
At least I am sure it may be so in Denmark.
[He writes.]
So, uncle, there you are. Now to my word.
It is “adieu, adieu, remember me.”
I have sworn’t.

Hamlet, 1.5.99-119