Hamlet “Pulling a thread through the text” With use of close reading

What we love Reading Shakespeare – esp. Hamlet (obv) Reading on BOTH macro and micro levels! Pulling threads through texts! Close reading via analysis of the systems at work within passages Synthesis (obv) Public speaking!

And what else? Coming up with odd metaphors and analogies to explain what we are doing!

What? As you know, you will create a presentation on an idea (or question, motif, other) in Hamlet. For this presentation, you will select and analyze five passages (min.) – one from each of the five acts in the play. You will analyze each of the passages for the layers, or systems, we have discussed. You will create PowerPoint slides to include/convey this analysis. (You may use color coding or some other means to indicate the various layers. See what works for you.)

How? You began this process by reading the play and by selecting and noting an idea, question, motif, topic (or something else) that interests you. I hope that you begin with certain ideas about your self-selected topic. Now you will deepen your inquiry through close reading of passages:

What steps do we take? – Investigate: What do you notice about the passage in terms of each of the following “layers” or “systems”? – Ask: How do the devices contribute to the meaning within the passages? – Do this for FIVE PASSAGES – one from each act of the play. – Ultimately: You will make ask: What do you notice Shakespeare doing across the passages? How does that noticing contribute to meaning you find across the passages? How does that feed your thinking about your topic?

Then In your presentation you will share your findings. Tell about your process with regard to thinking about your topic: What did you originally think, wonder, ask? What did close reading help you see/understand/notice? What did you notice about specific systems/layers, and what does this noticing add to your reading? And what are your overall conclusions/questions now? As part of your presentation – to demonstrate how close reading relates to and fed your thinking, you will share your PowerPoint.

Sound -- Includes: Rhyme (end rhyme, internal rhyme, slant rhyme, consonance, assonance, alliteration, etc.) Sound quality(ies) of words (linguistic groups, etc.) meter (perhaps tone too) Speaker -- Includes: Voice character/speaker information Tone Diction – Includes: Types / groups of words parts of speech could be of interest Figurative Language – Includes: allusion, allegory, apostrophe, hyperbole, irony, metaphor, metonymy, onomatopoeia, oxymoron, personification, simile, synecdoche, symbol

Imagery – Includes: visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile, gustatory Syntax: What are the parts within sentence – and how are they assembled? Phrases? Clauses? Etc. Theme What thematic meaning(s) does the passage communicate? How does (do) the meaning(s) of this passage tie to the meaning(s) of other passages and/or across the play? Reader What meaning/reading does the reader bring to the passage?

O, this is the poison of deep grief; it springs All from her father's death. O Gertrude, Gertrude, When sorrows come, they come not single spies But in battalions. First, her father slain: Next, your son gone; and he most violent author Of his own just remove: the people muddied, Thick and unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers, For good Polonius' death; and we have done but greenly, In hugger-mugger to inter him: poor Ophelia Divided from herself and her fair judgment, Without the which we are pictures, or mere beasts: Last, and as much containing as all these, Her brother is in secret come from France; Feeds on his wonder, keeps himself in clouds, And wants not buzzers to infect his ear With pestilent speeches of his father's death; Wherein necessity, of matter beggar'd, Will nothing stick our person to arraign In ear and ear. O my dear Gertrude, this, Like to a murdering-piece, in many places Gives me superfluous death.

Sound

What you are doing right now: putting a lens on individual passages – reading closely for the systems at work, including: Sound Speaker Diction Figurative language Imagery Etc.