Sure, he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and god-like reason
Discussions of Hamlet's “To be or not to be” soliloquy are almost as varied and divergent as interpretations of the play itself.1 Different understandings of the play and different formulations of Hamlet's character naturally affect interpretations of the soliloquy, but interpretations which fail to consider the dramatic context of the speech are surely faulty in critical procedure. Unfortunately, most discussions of the passage overlook or minimize the relevance of the surrounding action to it, an error that may then lead to problems of coherent or thorough analysis of meaning. The fault of ignoring the dramatic context, for example, may be seen in G. Wilson Knight's approach to the speech in “Hamlet Reconsidered”:
The soliloquy (iii.i.56–88) at first seems reasonably clear, but difficulties multiply on close inspection. Commentators differ as to whether Hamlet's
To be, or not to be; that is the question