Hamlet's Soliloquy, by the Laureate

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

General Description

Date: 1871
Genre: satire

Scholarly Commentary

Introduction

Like “The Brothers”, this squib was written at the time of the controversy that erupted with Buchanan's hostile review of DGR's 1870 Poems. DGR's most substantial response was his essay “The Stealthy School of Criticism”, which originally had incorporated “The Brothers” into its text.

The poem is of course a parody of of the opening lines of Hamlet's famous speech (III.1.55ff.).

DGR later expanded these three couplets into a much more substantial piece that he titled “The Next New Hamlet's Soliloquy”.

Electronic Archive Edition: 1
Source File: 50-1871.raw.xml