Exercise 1

What makes this particular soliloquy so interesting among the rest, is that it presents a very
important change for Hamlet, a change from inaction to action, from apathy to passionate
pursuit of his goal. Throughout this soliloquy we see Hamlet move through various stages of
thought, from philosophical reflection, to inward reflection on the state of his own heart, to
reflection on the actions of those around him and what they can teach him, back to philosophical
reflection on the nature of greatness, and how he must achieve it and ultimately to from
reflection to decaration of his actions from this time forth. In order to fully understand his
journey, let us break this soliloquy down point by point.
How all occasions do inform against me,

And spur my dull revenge!

Here Hamlet is looking at the world and how everything around him points out how wrong his
actions are. To inform against, literally means to accuse (Dolven). It is as if the world itself and
all situations he finds are accusing him of apathy and reminding him of the his inability to
complete his revenge.

What is a man,

If his chief good and market of his time

Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.

This is a more direct and self explanatory line than one often finds in Shakespeare, while at the
same time bearing with it a powerful depth. Hamlet is saying that a man who exist but to eat and
sleep is no more than a mere animal.Man is a being made to think, to reason, to laugh, to love,
to create art, and to seek higher goals and more meaningful pursuits than simply survival.

Sure, he that made us with such large discourse,

Looking before and after, gave us not

That capability and god-like reason

To fust in us unused.

This is a very interesting point. Hamlet is saying that God did not give humanity the ability to
think, to look to the past and future and reflect on what has been and what could be, just for us
to waste it. To fust literally means to decay. Hamlet praises human knowledge and reason,
calling it "god-like", and warns that if unused it will eventually die and rot away.

Now, whether it be
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on the event,
A thought which, quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom
And ever three parts coward, I do not know
Why yet I live to say 'This thing's to do;
Hamlet's main point is that he does not know how he can live knowing what he should do, and having all
means strength, and desire to do so, yet still having the deed remain undone. He begins by saying that it
may be animal-like forgetfulness or a fear coming from over-thinking the situation and to carefully
considering the consequences, a type of reasoning which would only be one quarter reason and three
quarters cowardice.

Witness this army of such mass and charge

Led by a delicate and tender prince,
Whose spirit withdivine ambition puff'd
Makes mouths at the invisible event,
Exposing what is mortal and unsure
To all that fortune, death and danger dare,
Even for an egg-shell.

Here Hamlet looks out at the army before him and see's how they go to war, risking their lives for a a
worthless "eggshell" of a patch of ground. He see's the prince, young and inexperienced ("delicate and
tender"), standing off and laughing in scorn (making mouths at) at the unforeseenoutcome (invisible
event) of the battle, and sending his men off to ultimate danger, and even death.

How stand I then,

That have a father kill'd, a mother stain'd,
Excitements of my reason and my blood,
And let all sleep, while, to my shame, I see
The imminent death of twenty thousand men,
That, for a fantasy and trick of fame,
Go to their graves like beds

Here marks the central move in Hamlet's turning point. This is the crescendo of this soliloquy, where it
reaches it's most intense and passionate. Hamlet has contemplated the brave actions of the soldiers as
they march off to imminent doom for the shear sake of honor of king and country, yet Hamlet has not
taken arms against the massive affront to the personal honor of himself, his father, his mother, and the
state of Denmark itself. His father was murdered, his mother stained with incest, by marrying her
husbands brother.

Exercise 2

One example of political allegory is the Rope Dancers, who are Lilliputians seeking employment in the
government, All candidates are asked to dance on the rope and whoever jumps the highest without
falling is offered a high office .

Another example is the quarrels of factions inside the island of Lilliput. Which is the struggle between
the High Heels and the Low Heels . The High Heels Are most agreeable to the ancient constitution and
more in number than the Low Heels, Whereas the authority and power are on the side of the Low Heels
because the emperor uses them in the administration of the government . The struggle between these
two parties comparable to the struggle between the Whig and Tory parties of Britain.

We do not really expect Gulliver to end up in locations where human beings are so very different,
physically, than the way we are or he is.  First, he arrives in Lilliput, where the humans are only about six
inches tall. 

Exercise 3

As mode of thinking, romanticism revolutionized literature, religion and philosophy. It questioned the
settled way of thinking which had widely spread with the age of Enlightenment : the age that gave
priority to reason, and preference to ideas.

Romanticism came as new beginning with new conception for literature, by introducing new ideas and
ways of perceiving things. By this time, literature was becoming virtually synonymous with the
‘imaginative’ & ‘inventive’ & ‘creative’. The literary work itself came to be seen as an organic unity : it
became, as William Wordsworth defined it : ‘ the spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling’. Poetry
acquired then deep social, political and philosophical implications. Literature has become a whole
alternative ideology governed by ‘imagination’. 

The nature of romantic poetry has saved not only the aesthetic value of artistic expression of its
philosophy, but also it reflected a truly profound ideas and experiences, great human emotions.

It is important to stress the fact that according to Romantics, nature in general and all its parts have
specific features of the human soul. Though it is important to say that such personalization and
conception of nature as subordinate to the “world spirit” is very important peculiarity of romantic
literature, because it reflects the problem of man’s relationship to the world.

All romantic literature is subjective. It is an expression of the inner urges of the soul of the artist. The
poet gives free expression to his feelings, emotions, experiences, thoughts and ideas and does not care
for rules and regulations. The emphasis is laid on inspiration and intuition.

Wordsworth sees the business of poetry as not only "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" but
also as "emotion recollected in tranquillity" leading to the creation of a new emotion in the mind.   And
poetry is "the manner in which we associate ideas in a state of excitement."  Wordsworth holds that one
must look inward to the way that past experiences are reshaped/ associated anew in the memory.  This
is why Wordsworth praises the mind as "a mansion for all lovely forms" and the memory as "a dwelling-
place.