Critical approaches to Hamlet amuse their rulers with their inventive language. Osric and Polonius seem to especially respect this suggestion. Claudius' speech is full of rhetorical figures, as is Hamlet's and, at times, Ophelia's, while Horatio, the guards, and the gravediggers use simpler methods of speech. Claudius demonstrates an authoritative control over the language of a King, referring to himself in the first person plural, and using anaphora mixed with metaphor that hearkens back to Greek political speeches. Hamlet seems the most educated in rhetoric of all the characters, using anaphora, as the king does, but also asyndeton and highly developed metaphors, while at
Gertrude (Hamlet) Watts portrayed Gertrude in Claire McCarthy's 2018 "Ophelia". "Gertrude and Claudius", a John Updike novel, serves as a prequel to the events of the play. It follows Gertrude from her wedding to King Hamlet, through an affair with Claudius, and its murderous results, until the very beginning of the play. Gertrude also appears as a character in Howard Barker's "Gertrude—The Cry", which uses some of the characters from "Hamlet". "Hamlet" has played "a relatively small role" in the appropriation of Shakespeare's plays by women writers. Margaret Atwood's ""Gertrude Talks Back"", in her 1992 collection of short stories "Good Bones", sees