Reread lines 57-73. What mood has Shakespeare established

so far? Cite textual evidence in your response.

Answer: The mood that Shakespeare creates at the beginning of "Hamlet" is dark and suspenseful.

Explanation:

A mood is a literary element that the author uses in order to evoke certain feelings in his audience.

At the very beginning of Shakespeare's "Hamlet", a dark and frightening atmosphere is established. First of all, the king has recently died, and people are still in a state of shock. To make a situation more chilling, the two guards encounter the late king's ghost in heavy darkness. The appearance of the king's ghost serves as a foreshadowing of the bad events that are going to take place. As Horatio describes it:

"In what particular thought to work I know not,

But in the gross and scope of mine opinion

This bodes some strange eruption to our state."