The phrase "What a piece of work is a man!" comes from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Act II, Scene 2, and it is often used in reference to the whole speech containing the line.
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The monologue, spoken in the play by Prince Hamlet to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, follows in its entirety; rather than appearing in blank verse, the typical mode of composition of Shakespeare's plays, the speech appears in straight prose:
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I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation |
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—The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (Act II, Scene ii, 285-300), [1] |
The above text comes from the First Folio. In the Second Quarto, however, the sentence beginning "What a piece of work is a man" is punctuated very differently:
“ | What 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! |
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J. Dover Wilson, in his notes in the New Shakespeare edition, observed that the Folio text "involves two grave difficulties", namely that according to Elizabethan thought angels could apprehend but not act, making "in action how like an angel" nonsensical, and that "express" (which as an adjective means "direct and purposive") makes sense applied to "action", but goes very awkwardly with "form and moving".[2]
Scholars have pointed out this section's similarities to lines written by Montaigne:
“ | Qui luy a persuadé que ce branle admirable de la voute celeste, la lumiere eternelle de ces flambeaux roulans si fierement sur sa teste, les mouvemens espouventables de ceste mer infinie, soyent establis et se continuent tant de siecles, pour sa commodité et pour son service ? Est-il possible de rien imaginer si ridicule, que ceste miserable et chetive creature, qui n’est pas seulement maistresse de soy, exposée aux offences de toutes choses, se die maistresse et emperiere de l’univers?
Who have persuaded [man] that this admirable moving of heavens vaults, that the eternal light of these lampes so fiercely rowling over his head, that the horror-moving and continuall motion of this infinite vaste ocean were established, and contine so many ages for his commoditie and service? Is it possible to imagine so ridiculous as this miserable and wretched creature, which is not so much as master of himselfe, exposed and subject to offences of all things, and yet dareth call himself Master and Emperor. |
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However, rather than being a direct influence on Shakespeare, Montaigne may have merely been reacting to the same general atmosphere of the time, making the source of these lines one of context rather than direct influence.[3]
In the Reduced Shakespeare Company's production The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged), the more famous solliloquy, "To be, or not to be," is omitted from the Hamlet portion of the production, not for time constraints, or because the speech is so well known, but because the group states that they dislike the speech for momentum and motivation reasons. The "What a piece of work is a man" speech is delivered in its stead.
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