“What a piece of work is man, How noble in reason…/ and/ yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust.”

Hamlet’s mournful declaration in Act II, scene 2 opens the audience up to his deeply despondent view of human nature.  The prince of Denmark, fresh off his mother’s wedding to his uncle, looks at the world through graphite-colored glasses. Throughout the play, he is referred to as having an inky cloak and suits of woe, a man who is still in mourning for his father’s sudden passing. To me, there is more here than meets the eye. 

As I have been in rehearsal for the theater department’s production of Hamlet, I have heard the “What a piece of work is man” soliloquy many times, and each time I can’t help but be reminded of the praise of God in Psalm 8. The parallel structure between these two works helps to frame how their worldviews lead to their intersecting views of God and man. Far from Hamlet’s view of an absent God away from sinful man, David looks at man’s lowly state in amazement of God’s careful attention to him. “What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” (Psa 8:4) 

Psalm 8 is an act of praise for David. Different from his other works, asking God to smite his enemies or to remove the painful disease in his loins, David fixes his eyes upon God in contrast to how low man is. This act of praise illustrates how David views man in relation to God.

The correlation between Psalm 8 and the “What a piece of work is man” soliloquy seems more than accidental. The way Shakespeare structures this soliloquy hits the same beats as the psalmist but is based on a completely different worldview. 

Hamlet begins his speech by explaining his depressed state. “I have/ … lost all my mirth, forgone all/ custom of exercise, and indeed it goes so heavily/ with my disposition that this goodly frame, the/ earth seems to me a sterile promontory.” (II.2.318-322)

Compare this with the opening of Psalm 8. 

“O Lord, our Lord,

How majestic is your name in all the earth!

You have set your glory above the heavens.” (Psa 8:1)

These openings, though echoing the same points, indicate their differing foundations. Hamlet, left alone and isolated after his father’s death, looks upon the world with distaste, viewing the heavens as “nothing to me/ but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors.” (II.2.326) Far from viewing the heavens as the place where “God has set his glory,” Hamlet despises the celestial ceiling.

The heavens drive the psalmist to contemplate man, and man is where Hamlet and David find agreement. After questioning why God would even consider man, David lauds where God has placed man. 

Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings

    and crowned him with glory and honor.

 You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;

    you have put all things under his feet,

all sheep and oxen,

    and also the beasts of the field,

the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea,

    whatever passes along the paths of the seas. (Psa 8:5-8)

Hamlet’s next movement follows this almost exactly, even framing mankind against an angel.

What a piece of work is a man, how noble in

reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving

how express and admirable; in action how like

an angel, in apprehension how like a god: the

beauty of the world, the paragon of animals. (II.2.327-331) 

This praise of man remains the strongest similarity between the two. It is here where the two diverging parabolas meet at an apex. Yet this parallelism cannot remain. While David ends his soliloquy with praise of the Lord, Hamlet falls from this high view and ends in the dust of depression. “And/ yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man/ delights not me.” (II.2.332-334)

These two passages are beautiful comparisons of diverging worldviews, and I do not think this is accidental. Hamlet is full of religious imagery. Hamlet refers to the Diet of Worms, desires to return to Wittenberg, and King Claudius references Cain’s murder of Abel as he grapples with his guilt of murdering the king. Shakespeare appears to be making a direct comparison between Psalm 8, illustrating the difference in foundation. Hamlet’s foundation, a Viking fresh to Christianity, experiences the sudden death of his father and the remarriage of his mother to his uncle.

In contrast, David spent much of his life being known as “a man after (God’s) own heart.” (1 Sam 13:14) Though they argue the same way, their foundations remain worlds apart. They follow the same structure of recognizing man’s place in the world, where God would be, the heavens, how man relates to angels, and what that means for mankind to God. This parallel pattern illustrates their diverging worldviews. Though structurally similar, they end in vastly different headspaces. While Psalm 8, beginning and ending with praise of the Lord, takes on a hopeful outlook; Hamlet focuses on how man has failed him without looking upon God, and ends in a despondent state.

Christopher Dick is a senior majoring in history.