Shakespeare carefully hones his language to illustrate the movements of Hamlet's mind in this famous speech.
Hamlet’s soliloquy begins with what must be the most famous line in the English canon: “To be or not to be.” For the character at that moment, it is an important question, literally one of “life and death”, but the general terms in which it is phrased gives it a resonance that reaches out past Hamlet. Hamlet poses the question on the most metaphysical level – not “shall I kill myself?”, nor “can I live like this?” but “to be or not to be”. It is existence itself that is up for debate in this speech.
The form of words guarantees that Hamlet’s question will be interpreted on a general level: the line uses one of the most basic verbs in the language, one without which English itself would surely be impossible to speak. The verb is then phrased in the infinitive, “to be”, rather than attaching it to any specific noun or pronoun (not even Hamlet’s own “I”). Balancing it on the other side of “or” is the simplest possible opposition, the same verb with a one syllable prefix: “not”.
Again, at the risk of labouring the point, “to be” is not opposed by “suicide”, “death” or “non-existence” but its simple grammatical opposite. Shakespeare boils down the issue to its simplest and most abstract form, until it almost doesn’t make sense – it would be interesting to know how many people who recognise the phrase “to be or not to be” could explain what it means. Shakespeare avoids any imagery, any particular reference that could narrow the question’s application, which is surely one reason why the phrase has resounded throughout our literate culture.
Having made this deliberately stark declaration, bare of imagery or ornament, Shakespeare then has Hamlet produce sudden flood of images. The “slings and arrows” of fortune, the “arms” to be employed against a “sea of troubles”, the “sleep of death, the “whips and scorns” of time, the “undiscovered country” of the afterlife. Indeed some of these images jar against each other: how exactly is one meant to “take up arms” (to employ weapons) against a “sea of troubles”?
The contrast with the bare elegance of the first line is striking, but this is not simply Shakespeare being careless or overwriting the speech. The rush of imagery shows Hamlet attempting to wrestle with the eternal question he has raised, and their number demonstrates that he cannot easily get a grip on the problem – he cannot find an analogy with which to work through to a solution that has the clarity and purity of the question itself.
