1. Bilingual course of English and American literature Zhao Jingrong Department of Chinese and literature2006.3.9

2. William Shakespeare(1564-1616)

3. 154 sonnets, 37 plays, and 2 long narrative poems; Four Great Tragedies: Hamlet(1601), Othello(1604), King Lear(1605), and Macbeth(1606). Shakespeare is not of an age, but for all time.

4. William Shakespeare(1564-1616) Penetrating exposition of human nature, lively paintings of human life and truthful reflections of human reality. Shakespeare’s life and timeShakespeare’s life and time; Shakespeare’s life and time Shakespeare’s literary viewsShakespeare’s literary views; Shakespeare’s literary views Shakespeare’s three periods of dramatic careerShakespeare’s three periods of dramatic career; Shakespeare’s three periods of dramatic career Shakespeare’s tragedies and SonnetsShakespeare’s tragedies and Sonnets. Shakespeare’s tragedies and Sonnets

5. Shakespeare’s life and time His hometown and his writings; His education; His life in London; His inscription: Good Friend, for Jesus’ sake, forbear Good Friend, for Jesus’ sake, forbear To dig the dust enclosed here; To dig the dust enclosed here; Blest be the man that spares these stones Blest be the man that spares these stones And curst be he that moves my bones. And curst be he that moves my bones.

6. Shakespeare’s literary views Literature is a combination of beauty, kindness and truth. Literature should reflect nature and reality. Literature which reflect nature and reality can reach immortality.

7. Shakespeare’s three periods of dramatic career 1st: 1590-1600. history plays, comedies and tragedies;----------Queen Elizabeth Ⅰ (1558- 1603) 2nd: 1600-1608. tragedies, dark comedies; 3rd: 1608-1612.history plays, legend plays (romantic tragicomdies) ---------James Ⅰ (1603-1625)

8. Shakespeare’s tragedies Tragedy: (1) The harshness and apparent injustice of life (2) a person of significance, a hero (3) trails and catastrophes, a hero’s downfall and death (4) a hero’s weakness in his character Catharsis

9. Shakespeare’s four great tragedies Evil and the corruption of man’s heart by evil. Hamlet: fighting against the outside evil; Othello: an outward evil causes a man’s fall; King Lear: man’s mistakes set free the evils; Macbeth; an outward evil destroys a hero.

10. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark Hamlet is regarded as Shakespeare’s most popular and greatest play on the stage. It is the first work of literature to show an ordinary person looking at the absurdness and wrongs in life, asking the toughest questions and coming up with honest semi- answers like most people do today.

11. Questions on Hamlet

12. How did Claudius murder King Hamlet? 1. By stabbing him through an arras 2. By pouring poison into his ear 3. By ordering him to be hanged 4. By poisoning his wineglass

13. Where do Hamlet and Laertes fight during Ophelia’s funeral? 1. In the nearby woods 2. Beside Ophelia’s grave 3. Inside the church 4. Inside the grave itself

14. How does Ophelia die? 1. Claudius stabs her 2. Hamlet strangles her 3. She slits her wrists 4. She drowns in the river

15. Why, according to Polonius, has Hamlet gone mad? 1. grieves too much for his father 2. He despises Claudius for marrying Gertrude 3. He is in love with Ophelia 4. He is jealous of Laertes and longs to return to Wittenberg

16. Who is the last character to die in the play? 1. Horatio 2. Hamlet 3. Claudius 4. Fortinbras

17. Why does Hamlet decide not to kill Claudius after the traveling players’ play? 1. Claudius is praying 2. Claudius is asleep 3. Claudius pleads for mercy 4. Gertrude is in the next room

18. Which of Claudius and Laertes’ traps for Hamlet succeeds in killing him? 1. The poisoned cup 2. The sharpened sword 3. The poisoned dagger 4. The poisoned sword

19. Hamlet’s character The cast of Hamlet’s mind is so speculative, so questioning, and so contemplative. His life is one of constant role- playing, examining the nature of action only to deny its possibility, for he is too sophisticated to degrade his nature to the conventional role of a stage revenger.

20. To be or not to be To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether ‘tis([ 诗 ] it is) nobler in the mind to suffer The slings & arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them? 生存还是毁灭，这是一个值得考虑的问题；默然忍 受命运的暴虐的毒箭，或是挺身反抗人世的无涯的 苦难，通过斗争把它们扫清，这两种行为，哪一种 更高贵？

21. “To be or not to be” is the key sentence in this soliloquy. “To be” is to continue to live, or to take action. “not to be” is to die, or to do nothing but suffering, to end one’s life by self- destruction. It is a dilemma of trying to determine the meaning of life and death. Is it nobler to suffer the life passively or to die (seek to end one’s sufferings) actively?

22. To die: to sleep; No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd. 死了；睡着了；什么都完了；要是在这一种睡眠之中， 我们心头的创痛，以及其他无数血肉之躯所不能避免 的打击，都可以从此消失，那正是我们求之不得的结 局。 To die: to sleep. It is a metaphor. Hamlet spoke of suicide as a escape. His speech has become proverbial as an outpouring of utter world- weariness.

23. To die, to sleep; To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause. 死了；睡着了；睡着了也许还会做梦；嗯，阻碍就在这 儿：因为当我们摆脱了这一具朽腐的皮囊以后，在那死 的睡眠里，究竟将要做些什么梦，那不能不使我们踌躇 顾虑。 Why is it “the rub”? What makes us pause? Hamlet thinks that suicide is a desirable action of escaping, but what will happen after dying? It alludes to hesitation for sleeping/ dying because Hamlet realizes that unknown dreams will make us terrified.

24. There's the respect 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, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? 人们甘心久困于患难之中，也就是为了这个缘 故；谁愿意忍受人世的鞭挞和讥嘲、压迫者的 凌辱、傲慢者的冷眼、被轻蔑的爱情的惨痛、 法律的迁延、官吏的横暴和费尽辛勤所换来的 小人的鄙视，要是他只要用一柄小小的刀子， 就可以清算他自己的一生？ This speech confirms Hamlet’s suspicion of afterlife. People would rather suffer life- long miseries than to sleep to undergo the unknown dreams. Because comparatively the latter is more fearful.

25. 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 And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of? 谁愿意负着这样的重担，在烦劳的生命的压迫下呻 吟流汗，倘不是因为惧怕不可知的死后，惧怕那从 来不曾有一个旅人回来过的神秘之国，是它迷惑了 我们的意志，使我们宁愿忍受目前的磨折，不敢向 我们所不知道的痛苦飞去？ To be is more difficult and fearful than not to be. The speech indirectly gives Hamlet a reason why he has always been hesitating for taking revenge. Hamlet has to live a suspected life between fact and fiction, language and action. It is his speculation and vulnerability as well.

26. Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprises of great pitch and moment With this regard their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action. 这样，重重的顾虑使我们全变成了懦夫，决心的 赤热的光彩，被审慎的思维盖上了一层灰色，伟 大的事业在这一种考虑之下，也会逆流而退，失 去了行动的意义。 Hamlet thus concludes that the dread of the afterlife leads to excessive moral sensitivity that makes action impossible.

27. -- Soft you now! The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy (your) orisons Be all my sins remember'd. 且慢！美丽的奥菲利娅！ —— 女神， 在你的祈祷之中，不要忘记替我忏悔 我的罪孽。

28. Hamlet ’ s theme Taking of revenge. The revenging theme is interrelated with themes of faithlessness, love and ambition. Contrast is an important structural principle in Hamlet. The suspicion between fact and fiction, language and action. Procrastination.

29. Qestion Why does Hamlet hesitate?

30. Soliloquy Soliloquy: 1. an utterance or discourse by a person who is talking to himself/ herself or is disregardful of or oblivious to any hearers present (often used as a device in a drama to disclose a character’s innermost thoughts); 2. the act of talking while or as if alone Soliloquy: or monologue, a dramatic or literary form of discourse in which a character reveals his or her thoughts when alone or unaware of the presence of other characters.

31. The form of soliloquy Soliloquy is often used in Blank verse ( 无韵诗， 素体诗 ). Blank verse consists of five feet (ten syllables) in iambic （抑扬格） pentameter （五 音步诗行） without end rhyme. This form has generally been accepted as that best adapted to dramatic verse in English and is commonly used for long poems whether dramatic, philosophic, or narrative.

32. Some notions Unrhymed: without end rhyme, having no regular correspondence of sounds at the ends of lines. iambus: a metrical （诗的格律的，韵律的） foot consisting of an unstressed syllable （音节） (-) followed by a stressed syllable (\), e.g.: begin (- \). A pentameter means a line of verse consisting of five metrical feet. A foot is (usually) two or three syllables that contain one strong stress.

33. Iambic Pentameter - \ - \ - \ \ - - \ - To be, | or not | to be: | that is | the question: \ - - \ - \ - \ - \ - To be, | or not | to be: | that is | the question: \ - - \ - \ - \ - \ - Whether | 'tis nob | ler in | the mind | to suffer Whether | 'tis nob | ler in | the mind | to suffer

34. Soliloquy’s function 1. to give free and complete expression to a complicated state of mind and feeling of a character 2. to provide a point of view on the events of the play.

35. Hamlet’s soliloquy For such a figure as Hamlet, soliloquy is a natural medium, a necessary release of his anguish; and some of his questioning monologues possess surpassing power and insight, which have survived centuries of being torn from their context. The most famous soliloquy is perhaps “to be or not to be” in Act III, Scene I, Hamlet.

36. Hamlet’s soliloquy Main Idea: This is an internal philosophical debate on the advantages and disadvantages of existence, and whether it is one's right to end his or her own life. It presents a most logical and powerful examination of the theme of the moral legitimacy of suicide in an unbearably painful world.