Hamlet Review

Hamlet Review 2011

What have we learned about how language works in literature, about Elizabethan theatre, about Shakespeare’s writing, and about Hamlet itself?

I.                     Hamlet’s sound

A.      RHYMING COUPLETS provide memorable closure and summation

B.       IAMBIC PENTAMETER / BLANK VERSE

1.        provides structure, unity

2.        provides potential for emphasis by way of variation: “to be or not to be; THAT is the question.”

II.                   Hamlet’s language

A.      Word play

1.        5.1 “lie”: lie down & tell lies

2.        4.7 “too much of water”: tears & drowning [&, obliquely, Hamlet’s wish to melt (1.2)]

B.       paradoxes: “more than kin less than kind”

C.       figurative language/metaphors: king > worm > fish > beggar is a metaphor for Hamlet’s questioning of the Elizabethan social structure

III.                 Hamlet as theatre

A.      Acting Choices (interpretations)

“To be or not to be” (3.1)

a.        Zefferelli= MEL GIBSON

b.       Almereyda= ETHAN HAWKE

c.        Branagh= KENNETH BRANAGH

The Murder of Gonzago / “The Mouse Trap”

a.        Zefferelli= ____________________

b.       Almereyda= ____________________

c.        Branagh= ____________________

B.       Visual Choices (interpretations)

Ex. “to be or not to be”

1.        Branagh’s mirror= deceit, also outward action v. self-directed action

2.        Zefferelli’s catacombs= death “the undiscovered country”

3.        Almereyda’s Blockbuster= “Action” / “Go Home Happy” (irony)

IV.           Hamlet’s patterns

A.      Characters

1.        Hamlet’s foils (contrasting characters) in terms of action:

FORTINBRAS and LAERTES

2.        Another similarity and contrast: Hamlet (acts mad, wishes to die), Ophelia (is mad, allows herself to do die)

3.        Who “spies”? How?

Polonius, Reynaldo (on Laertes), 2.2 Rosencrantz, Guildenstern (on Hamlet), 3.1 Claudius, Polonius (on Hamlet using Ophelia), 3.2 Horatio, Hamlet (on Claudius during play), 3.4 Polonius (on Hamlet using Gertrude)

4.        Who follows and obeys? Who flatters authority (kisses up to those in power)?

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B.       Plot

1.        Irony

a.        Hamlet believes CLAUDIUS is confessing for his sins and so does not kill him.

b.       The reader/audience knows that CLAUDIUS has failed to confess.

c.        Mel Gibson claims that Hamlet’s failure to kill CLAUDIUS here triggers all the other deaths in the play (triggers the tragedy as such).

2.        Fitting deaths

a.        POLONIUS dies spying

b.       OPHELIA dies passively (& in water)

c.        GERTRUDE dies drinking to Hamlet (Her death triggers Hamlet to action vs. Claudius, no?)

d.       LAERTES (“I am justly killed by my own treachery.”)

e.        CLAUDIUS (by sword and drink)

f.         HAMLET (“the rest is silence”)

g.       ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN die as servants

3.        Is Fortinbras rewarded for

a.        Deception?

b.       Action?

C.       Imagery (Who or what is associated with these images?)

1.        water / liquids: Hamlet, Ophelia

2.        weeds / flowers: Hamlet, Ophelia

3.        snakes and other animals: Claudius (serpent), Polonius (rat), Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern (sponge, adders [snakes])

4.        painting / make-up: Claudius, Ophelia, Gertrude

5.        other: _____________________________________________________________

D.      Historical and Mythological Allusions

1.        Hyperion (Sun God) to Satyr (Goat Man) (1.2 soliloquy)):

King Hamlet and Claudius

2.        Priam and Hecuba (2.2 Player’s speech and Hamlet’s second soliloquy):

King Hamlet and (unlike) Gertrude

3.        Alexander the Great (5.1 graveyard scene) even great men end up dirt

4.        Julius Caesar (3.2 Murder of Gonzago/Mouse Trap scene) Polonius once performed the role of Julius Caesar. Later Hamlet kills Polonius.

5.        other: : ____________________

E.       Themes

1.        Fallen world

a.        Hamlet sees the world as corrupt.

aa.     “How weary, flat, stale, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world.”

bb.    “tis an unweeded garden”

cc.     “Man delights not me nor woman neither”

b.       This view is triggered – it seems – by his mother’s overhasty marriage (and later by Ophelia’s lying).

aa.     “Frailty thy name is woman”

bb.    “Get thee to a nunnery.”

2.        Responses to corruption & trauma: Thought and Action

a.        Hamlet’s soliloquies are one response to trauma: 1.2, 2.2, 3.1, 4.4

b.       Laertes’s and Ophelia’s responses to trauma are revealed in these scenes: 4.5, 4.7

c.        Fortinbras’s response is revealed in these scenes: 1.2, 4.4, 5.2

3. Deception: Appearance and Reality, Seems and Is

WRITE DOWN FOUR EXAMPLES OF MOMENTS WHEN SOMETHING (A PERSON’S BEHAVIOR, A PERSON’S INTENTIONS, A PERSON’S WORDS, A PERSON’S REACTION) IN THE PLAY SEEMS TO BE ONE THING BUT IS ACTUALLY ANOTHER.

a.        ______________________________________

b.       ______________________________________

c.        ______________________________________

d.       ______________________________________              

How does the play illustrate the complexity and variety of human responses to corrupt acts, traumatic loss, and the realization of human mortality (including one’s own)? What does the play suggest about these responses?