hello! I was wondering, do you know why so many hamlets seem to recite āto be or not to beā as a bit... detached? I donāt mean they donāt do it with emotion or that I donāt like those; simply that they donāt portray it in a way that convinces me that hamlet is, at that very moment, considering his own death/suicide and itās possible consequences (the only actor Iāve seen do it that way is Benedict Cumberbatch). maybe itās just how it came off to me as I read it, but now Iām rather confused :/
I understand your confusion. It's really an issue of how you interpret that speech. And being one of the most famous monologues in the English language, itās not surprising there are so many ways of looking at it.
The first thing is that, while the idea that Hamlet is considering his own death or suicide is a valid interpretation, itās not the only way of looking at it. The Cambridge Shakespeare editor Philip Edwardsā note for this passage agrees with you: āthere are many opinions on what the question really is. I assume that Hamlet is debating whether to take his own life or notā. The Arden editors (Anne Thompson and Neil Taylor) are a little more objective and sums up the main approaches well: āPerhaps surprisingly after so much debate, editors and critics still disagree as to whether the question for Hamlet is a) whether life in general is worth living, b) whether he should take his own life, c) whether he should act against the Kingā. Thereās one more slightly less popular one to add to this: some critics argue that Hamlet knows he is being observed and is therefore putting on a show of his āantic dispositionā, so that a morbid debate is a sign of his madness.
From a textual point of view, I think itās incredibly important to note the fact that Hamlet never uses the first person pronoun in this speech. As G. R. Hibbard (the Oxford Shakespeare editor ) writes, āOne thing can be said with some confidence about this ā¦ soliloquy: it is cast in general terms. Hamlet speaks of we, us, who and he, without using I or me onceā. Actors, who study their speeches extremely hard and in detail, study this monologue especially hard because they know people will judge their Hamlet according to the way they do this speech (as this RSC sketch parodied perfectly). Itās very likely they notice this little detail, and hence itās often played as a detached philosophical pondering about the futility of life, rather than as a tormented and emotional consideration of suicide.
