“Alas, Poor Yorick!”: Hamlet, Act V, scene 1: Brush Up Your Shakespeare: 020

Radio Free Mormon

This scene takes place entirely in a graveyard! And Shakespeare, sensing things are getting a bit heavy, lightens things up with some comedy between two gravediggers!

One of the gravediggers pops up a skull that belonged to the court jester, Yorick, and hands it to Hamlet. This begins one of the most famous vignettes in Shakespeare: That of Hamlet holding a skull in the palm of his hand while he speaks to it! And what Hamlet has to say to that skull may be some of the darkest lines in literature!