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"To be, or not to be" is a speech given by Prince Hamlet in the so-called "nunnery scene" of William Shakespeare's play Hamlet (Act 3, Scene 1). The speech is named for the opening phrase, itself among the most widely known and quoted lines in modern English literature, and has been referenced in many works of theatre, literature and music.
William Shakespeare's play Hamlet has contributed many phrases to common English, from the famous "To be, or not to be" to a few less known, but still in everyday English. Some also occur elsewhere (e.g. in the Bible) or are proverbial. All quotations are second quarto except as noted:
Hendiadys is one rhetorical type found in several places in the play, as in Ophelia's speech after the nunnery scene ("The expectancy and rose of the fair state" and "I, of all ladies, most deject and wretched" are two examples). Many scholars have found it odd that Shakespeare would, seemingly arbitrarily, use this rhetorical form throughout ...
The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, often shortened to Hamlet (/ ˈ h æ m l ɪ t /), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play.
Hamlet: Peter Verstegen Amsterdam: 2018 9789025370527, 9025370527 1079229341 Estonian Taani Prints Hamlet: A.F. Tombach-Kaljuvald Tartu: 1930 924373442 Finnish Hamlet: Paavo Cajanderin Charleston: 2014 9781502465009 German Hamlet: Norbert Greiner Tübingen: 2006 9783860575673 214348716 Haitian Creole Hamlèt (Prens Denmak) Nicole Titus ...
Hamlet is walking alone in the hall as the King and Polonius await Ophelia's entrance, musing whether "to be or not to be". When Ophelia enters and tries to return Hamlet's things, Hamlet accuses her of immodesty and cries "get thee to a nunnery", though it is unclear whether this, too, is a show of madness or genuine distress.
In Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern always appear as a pair, except in editions following the First Folio text, where Guildenstern enters four lines after Rosencrantz in Act IV, Scene 3. [ 1 ] The two courtiers first appear in Act II , Scene 2, where they attempt to place themselves in the confidence of Prince Hamlet , their childhood friend.
The monologue, spoken in the play by Prince Hamlet to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Act II, Scene 2, follows in its entirety. Rather than appearing in blank verse, the typical mode of composition of Shakespeare's plays, the speech appears in straight prose: