Hamlet contemplating the skull
by Terri Waters
Title
Hamlet contemplating the skull
Artist
Terri Waters
Medium
Photograph - Photograph
Description
In Bancroft Gardens is the Gower Memorial.
The Bancroft was originally an area of land where the townspeople grazed their animals, and the Canal Basin formed the terminus of the Stratford-to-Birmingham canal, completed in 1816. The Gardens also occupy the site of former canal wharves, warehouses, and a second canal basin, which was built in 1826 and refilled in 1902
Bancroft Gardens were extensively re-developed during 2009 - 2010 with new planting, new flower beds, a new bridge and viewing platform over the lock that forms the entrance to the canal basin.
The Gower Memorial was presented to the town of Stratford in 1888 by Lord Ronald Sutherland Gower.
The statue features William Shakespeare seated on a pedestal, surrounded at ground level by figures of four literary characters featured in a selection of his plays.
Hamlet represents Philosophy.
The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. It is Shakespeare's longest play and among the most powerful and influential tragedies in all literature.
The statue portrays the famous scene from the play of Hamlet contemplating the skull of Yorick in a graveyard.
Yorick is a fictional character in William Shakespeare's play Hamlet. As a child Hamlet found the jester Yorick amusing and entertaining. They used to play and frolic in an intimate but innocent way. Now that Yorick is a stinking corpse the memory of touching him seems revolting and makes Hamlet feel ill. The deceased court jester's skull is exhumed by the gravedigger in Act 5, Scene 1, of the play. The sight of Yorick's skull evokes a monologue from Prince Hamlet on the vile effects of death:
Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy; he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? Your gambols? Your songs? Your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar"
This complex speech is one of the best known in all dramatic works
Uploaded
February 10th, 2013
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