The soliloquies are the beating heart of Hamlet. They are where a prince who spends most of the play performing for other people finally speaks to us, and where Shakespeare’s language does its most extraordinary work. This guide to the Hamlet soliloquies takes you through all seven major speeches, shows you what each one reveals, and then widens out to the imagery, verse, prose and structure that you need for the language and form sections of any essay.

Part of our Hamlet Revision Guide series.

Table of Contents

1. What a soliloquy actually does
2. Soliloquy 1: “O, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt” (Act 1 Scene 2)
3. Soliloquy 2: “O all you host of heaven” (Act 1 Scene 5)
4. Soliloquy 3: “O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!” (Act 2 Scene 2)
5. Soliloquy 4: “To be, or not to be” (Act 3 Scene 1)
6. Soliloquy 5: “‘Tis now the very witching time of night” (Act 3 Scene 2)
7. Soliloquy 6: “Now might I do it pat” (Act 3 Scene 3)
8. Soliloquy 7: “How all occasions do inform against me” (Act 4 Scene 4)
9. How the soliloquies change: a map
10. Imagery patterns to know
11. Verse, prose and register
12. Wordplay, puns and ambiguity
13. Structure and form
14. A model paragraph on language
15. Your next step