William Shakespeare’s
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Hamlet is without question the most famous play in the English language. Probably written in 1601 or 1602,the tragedy is a milestone in Shakespeare’s dramatic development; the playwright achieved artistic maturity in this work through his brilliant depiction of the hero’s struggle with two opposing forces: moral integrity and the need to avenge his father’s murder.
Hamlet endures as the object of universal identification because his central moral dilemma transcends the Elizabethan period, making him a man for all ages. In his difficult struggle to somehow act within a corrupt world and yet maintain his moral integrity, Hamlet ultimately reflects the fate of all human beings.
Prince Hamlet of Denmark is urged by his father’s Ghost to avenge his murder at the hands of the dead king’s brother, now King Claudius; to make matters worse, Claudius has married the widow, Hamlet’s mother, Queen Gertrude. Denmark is under threat of invasion from young Fortinbras, who seeks to regain lands lost to Hamlet’s father by Fortinbras’ father. Claudius sends word to the King of Norway to curb Fortinbras’ aggression.
You will keep a labelled and organized Records Journal on your own paper. This assignment is worth 60 points. For each scene of every act, you must record the following information: Summary: Provide a brief summary of what happens in the scene in your own words. Quote: Write down the line numbers to correspond to an important quote that you may want to refer to again. Response: Each reader/viewer has his or her own experience with a play or literature. What are you thinking? What connections can you make to your own experiences, other books/movies/plays, and to society? What questions do you have? What predictions can you make?. There will be checkpoints to evaluate your progress.
How can we read and understand William Shakespeare?
Read and complete your first entry of Act I, Scene i of Hamlet. 209_librivox/hamlet_1_shakespeare.mp _librivox/hamlet_1_shakespeare.mp3
Literature and Theatre Terms
Unrhymed verse especially the unrhymed iambic pentameter most frequently used in English dramatic, epic, and reflective verse.
An utterance or discourse by a person who is talking to himself or herself or is disregardful of or oblivious to any hearers present (often used as a device in drama to disclose a character's innermost thoughts). To be, or not to be, that is the question: 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:
Part of an actors lines supposedly not heard by others on stage and intended only for the audience.
A part of a drama in which a single actor speaks alone, at length.
Irony that is inherent in speeches or a situation of a drama and is understood by the audience but not grasped by the characters in the play.
A dramatic composition, often in verse, dealing with a serious or somber theme, typically that of a great person destined through a flaw of character or conflict with some overpowering force, as fate or society, to downfall or destruction.
A figure of speech in which a spoken phrase is devised to be understood in either of two ways. A double meaning.
A play on words. A joke.
A passing reference, without explicit identification, to a literary or historical person, place, or event, or to another literary work or passage.
A part of something used to signify the whole.
The literal term for one thing applied to another with which it has become closely associated because of a recurrent relation in common experience.
Either an inanimate object of an abstract concept is spoken of as though it were endowed with life or with human attributes or feelings.
Contrary ideas expressed in a balanced sentence. O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face! Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave? Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical! Dove-feather'd raven! wolvish-ravening lamb! Despised substance of divinest show! Just opposite to what thou justly seem'st, A damned saint, an honourable villain! O nature, what hadst thou to do in hell, When thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend In moral paradise of such sweet flesh? Was ever book containing such vile matter So fairly bound? O that deceit should dwell In such a gorgeous palace!
A paradoxical utterance that conjoins two terms in that in ordinary usage are contraries.
A statement which seems on its face to be logically contradictory or absurd, yet turns out to be interpretable in a way that makes sense.
A person who composed and recited epic or heroic poems.