Abstract
There are several images of mole in the dramatic works of Shakespeare. In Hamlet, for example, the "old mole" signifies the ghost of the former king. In Pericles, the act of a mole which casts away earth towards heaven (such earth is called mole-hill) symbolises a rebellion against the tyrant. And in The Tempest, the acute hearing of a mole has humour to make us smile. In this essay have I taken up mole and mole-hill imagery in Shakespeare, and examined the playwright's treatment of them, with special reference to Edward Topsell's The Historie of Foure-footed Beastes (1607), an encyclopaedic handbook of animals published in London. Shakespeare seldom uses images merely as decoration, but obviously uses them to comment on theme and character. The images of mole, however, do not have any important dramatic function, because they are often isolated and individual. They rather reveal Shakespeare himself as a dramatist.
