Shakespeares Hamlet - Polonius :: GCSE English Literature Coursework

Hamlets Polonius Gunnar Boklund in Judgment in Hamlet gives an boilersuit evaluation of the personality of Polonius in Shakespeares tragic drama, Hamlet Of the minor weeds which disturb Hamlet, Polonius is the most troublesome. We know that his advice to Ophelia and Laertes closely parallels the wisdom that eminently expert Elizabethan fathers bestowed on their children prudence was a more commendable virtue in the Renaissance than now, and the sentiment of This above all, to thine own self be avowedly remains, I should hope, unexceptionable today. But Polonius prudence, loyalty to the King, and pitiful death in his service do not make him the good old man that the pansy sees in him. He is a gentleman of the situation who, for his own and his masters purposes, manipulates human beings, including his own children, and who does not even do it very well. (122) This bear witness will evaluate and interpret the character of this wise, old father of Ophelia and Laertes. Polonius e ntry into the play occurs at the social get-together of the royal court. Claudius has already been crowned Queen Gertrude is thither Hamlet is present in the black clothes of mourning. When Laertes approaches Claudius to give his farewell before returning to school, the king asks Polonius Have you your fathers intrust? What says Polonius? And the father dutifully answers He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave By laboursome petition, and at last Upon his will I seald my hard consent I do beseech you, give him leave to go. (1.2) So right at the outset the reader/viewer respects the lord chamberlain as a very fluent spokesman of the language, and respectful of his superior, the king. Later, in Polonius house, Laertes is taking leave of his sister, Ophelia, and, in the process, giving her conservative advice regarding her boyfriend, Hamlet. Quietly Polonius enters and begins to advise Laertes regarding life away from home Give thy thoughts no tongue, Nor any unproportion ed thought his act. Be thou familiar, barely by no means vulgar. Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel But do not dull thy palm with entertainment Of each new-hatchd, unfledged comrade. Beware Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,