What are some examples of literary devices found in Hamlet act 4, scene 4, lines 32–46?

First, this entire passage is a soliloquy, a device in which an actor in a play speaks his thoughts out loud to the audience. Here, Hamlet is expressing his frustration at himself for constantly delaying his revenge. He has learned that Fortinbras is about to delve boldly into battle to gain a worthless piece of land. If he can do that, Hamlet thinks aloud, why can't I manage the easier feat of killing Claudius and avenging my father's death?


Hamlet expresses himself as well by using dichotomy throughout the soliloquy, continually opposing two unflattering reasons for his failure to act. He is hard on himself, saying he is either acting like a beast who only cares about its base physical wants, such as "to sleep and feast," if he does not move forward with his revenge, or he is a coward, "thinking too precisely on th' event." He sums up the dichotomy as:

Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple


He says this about himself because he is trying to goad himself into action.

Shakespeare also uses metaphor in this passage. A metaphor compares two things, usually an abstract concept to something concrete that we can visualize, see, touch, taste, or smell. In this passage, he likens a thought, an abstraction, to an object that his been split into four parts. He says three of the parts of the object are cowardice, and only one part is wisdom. In other words, he is saying that he is a mostly a coward for thinking too much and not acting:

A thought which, quartered, hath but one part wisdom

Another literary device Hamlet uses is polysyndeton. This means joining a series of words by using conjunctions, usually "and" or "or," when ordinarily you wouldn't. An example of this is the line:

Sith I have cause and will and strength and means

Normally, you would only use an "and" between strength and means. But separating all the different nouns with "and" adds emphasis to each noun: we stop on "cause" and on "will" and on "strength" and "means." Hamlet is noting that he has four important reasons and/or tools to accomplish his goal: this is a way of reminding himself he has no excuses.

The entire passage is below:

How all occasions do inform against me,
And spur my dull revenge! What is a man
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more.
Sure, he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and godlike reason
To fust in us unused. Now, whether it be
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple



Of thinking too precisely on th' event—
A thought which, quartered, hath but one part wisdom
And ever three parts coward—I do not know
Why yet I live to say “This thing’s to do,”
Sith I have cause and will and strength and means
To do ’t. Examples gross as earth exhort me.