In his famous speech, "Lately, but why I know not, I have lost all my mirth[...]" (II.ii.280), Hamlet illustrates a Elizabethan fusion of medieval and humanistic ideas, perhaps lost in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern but not in EMW Tillyard. Tillyard, in The Elizabethan World Picture, states that "what is true of Hamlet about man is especially true of the Elizabethan way of thinking in general" (4). This claim is unprovable, but reading Shakespeare's Hamlet in the light of Tillyard provides at best an explanation of Elizabethan thought and at worst an interesting perspective. Such a reading sees Hamlet not simply pontificating on the state of man and the universe, but manipulating this orthodox view to deceive those who hold it. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Hamlet goes to great lengths to demonstrate his depression to his two schoolmates. "'I have[...]lost all my cheerfulness, given up all habits of exercise'" (Ii.ii.280-1) he tells them, a sure sign of the depressive side of melancholy. He goes “heavily” (II.ii.281) with his disposition, another warning, as melancholy is associated with earth, the lowest and heaviest element (62, 69). "'[T]he earth seems to me a barren promontory'" (II.ii.282-3), he adds, a practically subversive statement. "[T]he world and its contents were made for man[...] [its great variety and ingenuity were indeed evidences of the wonderful power of the creator" (Tillyard, 80), and the ungrateful Hamlet calls the planet "sterile". He is fully aware of the implications of his speech; he calls the world a "beautiful setting" (II.ii.282), an incongruous description given his supposed state of mind. His next statement follows the same pattern: "this excellent canopy of the air[...]appears[...]a disgusting and pestilential congregation of vapours" (II.ii.283-6). Hamlet sees the normal air as corrupt and swampy, but he also merges it with the "firmament above" (II.ii.284). The firmament is the sphere of the fixed stars; thus Hamlet speaks not only of the sublunary air but of the ether, a better kind of air, clear and pure, and in doing so calls the substance of the sky itself "pestilential" (Tillyard, 39). However, he describes the air as "brave," "excellent," "majestic," and "hot with golden fire" (II.ii.283-5). Hamlet makes an abrupt transition from describing the cosmos to characterizing humanity, moving directly from the "foul and pestilential congregation of vapors" to "'What a work is a man!'" (II.ii.286) This movement makes more sense if seen as a correspondence from the macrocosm to the microcosm; Hamlet does not choose humanity as an important and arbitrary object upon which to shine his worldview (Tillyard, 91). Hamlet defines man "as an angel... the example of animals" (II.ii.288-9), prompting Tillyard to claim that this statement "is in the purest medieval tradition[...]as it was l 'man in his prelapsarian state[...]among the angels and the beasts' (4-5). The Quarto punctuation, although Tillyard does not use it when quoting the speech, assigns the quality of "apprehension" to the angels, which fits Tillyard's characterization of angels as "bound to man by the community of intellect" (28); the Folio aligns angels with "action," thus referring to angels, messengers, and messengers of God (Tillyard, 41). In any case, Hamlet is full of praise for the man, calling him "noble in reason" (II.ii.286-7), which is indeed the noblest quality the man possesses (Tillyard). , 28); "infinite in faculties" (II.ii.287), as both the medieval and modern minds would agree (Tillyard, 4);, 70).