Friday 12/21

 Ophelia's death

Journal:  Clauduis explains to Laertes why he could not "prosecute" Hamlet for the death of his father:

O, for two special reasons;
Which may to you, perhaps, seem much unsinew'd,
But yet to me they are strong. The queen his mother
Lives almost by his looks; and for myself--
My virtue or my plague, be it either which--
She's so conjunctive to my life and soul,
That, as the star moves not but in his sphere,
I could not but by her. The other motive,
Why to a public count I might not go,
Is the great love the general gender bear him;
Who, dipping all his faults in their affection,
Would, like the spring that turneth wood to stone,
Convert his gyves to graces; so that my arrows,
Too slightly timber'd for so loud a wind,
Would have reverted to my bow again,
And not where I had aim'd them.

Summarize Claudius' rationale for not imprisoning Hamlet.

1.   Review Fortinbras as a "foil" to Hamlet.  Anti-war themes?

2.  Discuss Journal.

3.  Identify the possible causes of Ophelia's mental collapse.

4.  What has happened to Ophelia at the conclusion of Act IV?  
--Was this intentional or an accident?

5.  **Explain how Hamlet arrives back in Denmark.  Believable?

6.  With a partner, list the various components of Claudius and Laertes plan
to kill Hamlet.  

Thursday 12/20

                                     Rest in Peace...     Polonius:  "Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!"

Journal:  In Act IV, scene III, Hamlet proclaims to Claudius:

We fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots.  Your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service, two dishes, but to one table.  

Explain the context of this situation.  Examine what theme is generated by Hamlet's words.

Act IV Guide questions:

1.  What has Hamlet done with Polonius' body?  Why?

2.  With whom do Gertrude's loyalties lie?  How can you tell?

3.  Whom does Hamlet refer to as a sponge?  Why?


Scene 4:  (pg 93)  Analyze Fortinbras as a "Foil" to Hamlet.  Consider themes related to war. 

Wednesday 12/18

Journal:  In Act 3, Hamlet has an opportunity to kill Claudius, yet he contemplates:

Now might I do it pat, now he is praying;
And now I'll do't. And so he goes to heaven;
And so am I revenged. That would be scann'd:
A villain kills my father; and for that,
I, his sole son, do this same villain send
To heaven.

Explain Hamlet's decsion here.  Do you agree?  Consider a potential tragic flaw.  

1.  Discuss Journal

2.  Activity:  With a partner, Assume the point of view of Claudius and craft a letter to the royal
court of Denmark explaining why Hamlet has to depart for England.  Be creative!

3.  Read Act 3:  Polonius' Death

**Who kills him?  Why?  

**Is remorse shown?

4.  Complete reading Act 3.  

5.  Discuss:  Gertrudes' possible involvement in King Hamlet's death.  Examine Gertrude's support (or lack thereof) for Hamlet.

6.  View selected film clips:  Act 3.  

Tuesday 12/18

At the end of Act 3, scene 2, Hamlet broods over how he shall regard his mother:

Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world: now could I drink hot blood,
And do such bitter business as the day
Would quake to look on. Soft! now to my mother.
O heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever
The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom:
Let me be cruel, not unnatural:
I will speak daggers to her, but use none;
My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites;
How in my words soever she be shent,
To give them seals never, my soul, consent!

Analyze Hamlet's feeling towards his mother here.  Consider what he has just learned and the
respective implications regarding Gertrude.

1.  Discuss Journal.

2.  Read Act 2, scene 3.

**Consider elements of Climax

3.  View Act 3:  Focus on "The Mousetrap"

Monday 12/17

Journal:  In Act III, Hamlet tells Claudius about the play the actors will peform:

The Mouse-trap. Marry, how? Tropically. This play
is the image of a murder done in Vienna: Gonzago is
the duke's name; his wife, Baptista: you shall see
anon; 'tis a knavish piece of work: but what o'
that? your majesty and we that have free souls, it
touches us not: let the galled jade wince, our
withers are unwrung.

** Analyze the significance of Hamlet's response.

1.  Review Hamlet's violent scene with Opehlia in Act 3
(Get Thee to a Nunnery)  

2.  Explore theme of misogyny.

3.  Discuss journal.  

Has Hamlet already made up his mind?
What might Claudius suspect about Hamlet's irrationality?

4.  Quiz:  Act II  

Friday 12/13

Journal:  In Act 3 scene 1, Hamlet confronts Ophelia and beckons her to "Get thee to a nunnery  Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?"

Analyze the symbolism of these remarks.  Consider how Ophelia feels here.

1.  Review "To Be or Not To Be"

2.  Discuss Journal.

3.  Review/Workshop:  Senior Project - Outline and Introduction.  **Will be collected at end of class.

4.  HW:  Read Hamlet  Act III

Thursday 12/13

Journal:  Hamlet's emotions wreak havoc on him when he realizes that the actors are more passionate about their fiction than he is about his life: "Am I a coward...But I am pigeon-liver'd and lack gall..."  Describe a time when you doubted yourself and were disgusted by your "inaction." 


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Directions:  With a partner, read the most important soliloquy in all of Shakespearean literarure.   Analyze existential themes generated.  Explain Hamlet’s quandary regarding existence.

HAMLET
To be, or not to be: that is the question:                                                **To be what?
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;                            
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks         **1000 natural shocks?
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;                   
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come **What dreams may come?
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect                         **Respect for life?
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,               **Pangs of despised love?
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will                        **Undiscovered country?
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution                     **We are cowards?  Why?
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

Wednesday 12/12

Journal:
At the conclusion of Act 2,  Hamlet's character begins to unravel:

O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
Is it not monstrous that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit
That from her working all his visage wann'd,
Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect,
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms to his conceit? and all for nothing!
For Hecuba!
What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her? What would he do,
Had he the motive and the cue for passion
That I have?

Explain why he is so upset.  Does he have a right to be?

1.  Discuss Journal

2.  Summarize his plan to gain clarity regarding Claudius.

3.  What doubts does Hamlet have concerning the ghost?

4.  Consider significance:  "The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King"

What does this mean?  Do you agree.

5.  Evaluate the wisdom of Hamlet's actions as Act 3 approaches.  Consider what can go wrong.  

Tuesday 12/11

Journal:  Explain why Hamlet refers to Polonius as a "fishmonger.  Describe someone you know who
is always meddling in others' affairs.

1.  Discuss journal

2.  Read Act 2, scene 2


 3.  Read pgs 51-55    Analyze interaction between Hamlet and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

 4.   Analyze Hamlet's speech on pg 53  "This goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory..."

5.  Read/Analyze Hamlet's sololiquy that concludes Act 2.  (pgs. 59-60)

Activity:  With a partner:

--Identify his fears

--Describe his emotional state

--Evaluate his feeling towards Claudius?  The Ghost?

--Summarize the plan he concocts.  

Monday 12/10

Journal:  In Act 2, scene 2, Polonius expresses to the Kind:  "Brevity is the soul of wit."
Explain what this means.  Consider how this is ironic?

1.  Discuss Journal

2.  Read Act 2, scene 2

--What do you think is Gertrude's opinion of Polonius?

--Why does Polonius read Hamlet's love letter?

--What is Polonius' new plan?  (Hint:  lines 174-179)  What might this reveal about his character?

Activity:  Read scene in which Polonius tries to match wits with Hamlet.  (pg. 50)

Questions:  Who wins?

What does Hamlet call Polonius?  Significance?  Explain.

3.  Read pgs 51-55    Analyze interaction between Hamlet and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

4.  Analyze Hamlet's speech on pg 53  "This goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory..."

Friday 12/7

Journal:

In Act 2, scene 1, after Ophelia tells her father that Hamlet visited her "with his doublet all ubraced, no hat upon his head, his stockings fouled, ungartered, and down-gyved to his ankle..." Polonius is very concerned and proclaims, "That hath made him mad". 

*Explain what he is referring to.   Consider how this generates dramatic irony.

1.  Discuss journal.

2.  Preview/Collect note cards.

3.  Quiz:  Act 1.

4.  View, Act 2, scenes 1 and 2. 

Journal:

In Act 1, scene 5, Hamlet confides to Horatio: "How strange or odd soe'er I bear myself-
As I perchance hereafter shall think meet
To put an antic disposition on-
That you, at such times seeing me, never shall... that you know aught of me..."

Describe Hamlet's plan here.  Why do you think he hopes to accomplish by this? 

1.  Discuss Journal

2.  Read Act 2, scene 1.

--What has "affrighted" Ophelia?
--Explain Polonius' reaction.

3.  Discuss:  Is Hamlet in control? 

Wednesday 12/5

Journal:  In Act 1, scene 5, the Ghost professes:

Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast,
With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts,--
O wicked wit and gifts, that have the power
So to seduce!--won to his shameful lust
The will of my most seeming-virtuous queen:

Identify the "adulterate beast" and analyze the ghost's feelings towards Gertrude.

1.  Discuss journal.

2.  Complete reading Act1, scene 5.

3.  Plot recognition:  Summarize what the Ghost has related to Hamlet.  (In notebook)

Examine what Hamlet is called to do?  Consider his current emotional state.

4.  Profile Act 2 as Rising Action.  

Tuesday 12/4

Journal:  In Act I, scene 3, Polonius advises his son, Laertes:  "Give every many thy ear, but few they voice...."  What do you think he means by this?  Describe a time when you may have followed similar advice.

1.  Discuss Journal

2.  Read Polonius' advice to his son.  With a partner, record as many "lessons" as you can and write them in your own words:  15 mins:  Share.

3.  *Consider the irony of this scene.

4.  Read the rest of scene 3.  What does Polonius instruct Ophelia to do?  Why?

5.  Read/view Scenes 4 & 5.  Discuss:

What does the Ghost relate to Hamlet?
What happened to King Hamlet?
Identify what the Ghost desires?
His feelings towards Gertrude?
Describe Hamlet's plan at the end of this act.

Monday 12/3

In Act 1, Hamlet delivers his first major sololiquy:

How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on't! ah fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely.

Analyze the metaphor Shakespeare employs here.  Consider what this reveals about Hamlet's character.  

1.  Outline and 2 pgs of introduction for  Senior paper:  Due:  Friday 12/14  (50 pts)

2.  Discuss Journal

3.  View Act 1 scene 3.

4.  Discuss What the Ghost has revealed to Hamlet.  Consider plot implications.

5.  With a partner, read/review scene 3.  Evaluate what Hamlet's fears are concerning the ghost.

HW:  Complete reading Act 1.  H.W. questions.