Comparison of Hamlet's Soliloquy And The Prince of Wales's Version

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Text Comparison Between Hamlet's Soliloquy And The Prince of Wales's Version

When comparing the two texts A and B, A being the famous speech in Shakespeare's Hamlet and B the Prince of Wales's version one of the first and most significant things to look for is the actual resemblance between the two texts. Is it correct to consider the Prince of Wales's version as a modernized version of Hamlet's soliloquy or is it just a text with similar plot. Further more is it fair to say that modernization of a language is always negative as the Prince of Wales claims? Secondly, the tone in the texts has a great importance which can not be neglected when comparing them. Furthermore one has to take in consideration how well each text fits in to the style of its particular period in time. These three aspects; Resemblance, tone and style of time period are some major issues when comparing the two texts but far from all. Now arguments will show in what ways the two texts are similar but also in what ways they differ.

To begin with, the resemblance between the texts can be argued due to the fact that in the modernized version some important messages are neglected. An example would be that while in text A nobility and honor are very important factors in the dilemma, in text B these are totally ignored and instead replaced by a purely reasonable choice. This can undoubtedly be seen when comparing the first parts of the texts. In text A Hamlet utters "whether `tis nobler to suffer[...]" which in the modernized version is written as "should [I] just say OK?." Furthermore Hamlet expresses dying while sleeping as a way of ending all the "heartache and [...] thousands [of] natural shocks that flesh is heir to" while in the modernized version it is mentioned as "taking the quick way out" when you are "stuffed up [...] with [all] mess". These two do not convey the same message. In text A the reader gets the impression of mental and emotional depression while text B puts it as if it were just giving up for nothing when you've had enough. The real depth of sadness never gets trough and the reader's opinion might therefore be that it is a hopeless person with no intentions in life who does not really have a valid reason to feel sorry for him/her-self.

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