Hamlet Final: Formal Academic Essay

Due Date: Monday, November 24th at 1pm
Submit through Turn It In

Requirements:
MLA format with Works Cited page
12 point Times font, double spaced
Two page minimum
At least one academic source
Extensive use of text
Use or formal thesis

Link to a brief list of academic essays, find your own, or use the one in our text.

Prompts:

The question of why Hamlet does not immediately avenge his father’s death has been a central interpretive mystery of the play for over 400 years. Why does Hamlet procrastinate?

Hamlet’s sanity, his “antic disposition”, and his erratic behavior that often seems very real is another central issue of the play, especially over the last couple of centuries. Does Hamlet in fact go crazy, or is he just playing a part? Or is he just profoundly disturbed, emotionally overwhelmed by circumstance and fate?

Ophelia’s madness, on the other hand, seems quite real. Why does she go mad? And in what ways is her madness different than Hamlet's?

A more modern concern of the play is the deaths of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Did they deserve this death? Be sure to include Hamlet’s assessment of his decision to have them executed.

Much is made of honor, conscience, and temperament in Hamlet. Compare and contrast the characters of Hamlet, Laertes, Horatio, and Fortinbras.

Analyze and discuss the position and power of women in Hamlet. In general, how are they treated and viewed, and how do they assert their own identities? Alternatively, outline Hamlet's attitude toward females and their sexuality.

There are three families portrayed in the play: Hamlet's, Ophelia's, and (to a lesser degree) Fortinbras's. Compare and contrast the different roles of elders and children and how the younger generation manages and reacts to their different situations.

How is friendship and romance represented in the tragedy and how do those dynamics influence the plot? What about the resolution?

Focus on Hamlet’s three major soliloquies. What is the progression of Hamlet’s thoughts revealed in these assessments of self and society? How do they reflect the major developments of plot, conflict, and resolution?

Hamlet declares, “Denmark is a prison”. What conditions, both personal and public, make this metaphor a defining point of Hamlet’s world and how do those conditions contribute to the tragedy?

Death, obviously, permeates this play from beginning to end. From the murder of King Hamlet, to the Prince’s famous meditation in the “To be or not to be” soliloquy, from Ophelia’s apparent suicide to “poor Yorick”, from the brutal blood bath that ends the play to the mere addendum that “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead, death is never far from the plot or the characters’ thoughts. Discuss the play’s various attitudes towards death and suggest whether the play reaches a final conclusion regarding the “undiscovered country”?

The Player King comments: “Our wills and fates do so contrary run/That our devices still are overthrown;/Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own” (3.2.234-236). This seems to suggest that fate rather than an individual’s own volition is the ultimate determinant of earthly events. Might this thought be viewed as the great theme of this play? Explain.

The ability to speak clearly is essential to how we relate to others and ourselves and in Hamlet this is especially true as a character’s ability to speak is linked with their power and identity. Discuss the play’s attitude towards “Words, words, words” (2.2.210). This seems to fit quite well with the above observation.

Certain types imagery and metaphor (sickliness, e.g.) runs throughout the tragedy. Trace any such use of language and discuss its artistic contribution to the play’s themes.

Select a single quote and explain how it represents a major theme of the play.

You may also create a prompt of your own, but it does require my approval.

Finish Hamlet

Periods 1-3 for Thursday 11/13
Period 5 for Friday 11/14

"the rest is silence"

Lit Device #3 is due next class!

After School Study Sessions and Writing Help

Tuesday (11/4)
and Thursday (11/6)
after school.
If you want to come
in another time,
let me know
in comments
or send an email.
Let's get this right!

Hamlet Reading Schedule Change

For November 5 & 6:        4.1 - 4.4
For November 7 & 12:      4.5 - 4.7
For November 13 & 14:    5.1 - 5.2
For November 17 & 18:    "Hamlet: A Modern Perspective"

Literary Device Assignment: These are the Keys!

Listen Up!

There are three keys to a quality product here:

First, it is essential that you establish the basic situation for the line or lines that contain the literary device you will be analyzing. What has happened just before? What plot developments are relevant? This should take no more than a sentence or three.

Second, you must D>E correctly. Quote properly and explain your brains out. Shakespeare often has all kinds of multiple meanings and connections to other ideas and plot developments. Unpack metaphors; discuss emphasis. Seriously, say as much as you can.

Third, and perhaps most challengingly, connect to larger issues that are evolving. This can include plot and conflict, character development, motifs, themes, and other imagery, metaphors, etc.

"Ozymandias" Grades

I believe I have corrected all the analyses of "Ozymandias". If you do not have a score in StudentVue, it is because you are yet to make up the test from an absence, your assignment did not reach me, or you are blowing it off. Please, if you have no grade, let me know which it is. (Option three is not recommended.)


Sorry, not the greatest representation here; the "visage" is not "half sunk" and I am not sure that facial expression qualifies as a "sneer of cold command", but you get the idea. I can only assume this image is a photoshop. But it is interesting how this poem, taught in high schools and colleges everywhere, keeps old Ozy alive, barely, for another generation. Does anyone currently "despair" while viewing it?

(You guys and gals could comment every now and then.)

Hamlet Reading Schedule

Day 1     1.1
Day 2     1.2 - 1.3
Day 3     1.4 - 2.1
Day 4     2.2
Day 5     3.1 - 3.2
Day 6     3.3 - 3.4
Day 7     4.1 - 4.7
Day 8     5.1 - 5.2
Day 9     "Hamlet: A Modern
                Perspective"


Reminder: Your first Lit Device Assignment for Act 1 is not due until next week. You should, however, be keeping up on the Scene Themes.

Hamlet Assignments

The following are your two play-long assignments for Hamlet. Keep all entries together, organized, and shared with me. Name the document “Hamlet: Themes and Devices".

Scene Themes and Tone

Each of the scenes in Hamlet, generally speaking, has a kind of thematic concern that emerges through the action and dialogue along with an overall tone that reinforces the thematic concept. This part of the assignment is to simply make a list of each scene’s theme and tone along with a quick list of plot elements that demonstrate them.

1.1

theme: uncertainty

tone: mysterious, apprehensive, tense

events: setting is at night, outside; characters are on watch (opening words of play “Who’s there?); the appearance of ghost (what is it? what does it want? what should we do? what does this mean?);  why the preparations for war; tell Hamlet?

Literary Devices and Techniques in Shakespeare’s Hamlet

Literary devices are what puts the art in literature. Each has a specific function and adds meaning and depth to a text. One of our goals with Hamlet is to gain experience identifying these techniques as they appear in a text and then appreciating how they enhance meaning of that particular passage, but also contribute to larger ideas of the text as a whole. (This is essentially D>E, right?)

Step 1: Learn the meaning of the following terms and begin to identify them in the text as we read.

•Alliteration  •Allegory •Allusion  •Ambiguity  •Anaphora   •Anastrophe  •Analogy •Anecdote •Antihero •Aphorism  •Apostrophe  •Aside  •Assonance  •Antithesis •Asyndeton  •Cacophony •(Metaphysical) Conceit  •Connotation  •Caesura •Colloquialism •Consonance  •Chiasmus •Denotation • Deus Ex Machina  • Dialect  •Double Entendre  •Enjambment  •Epanalesis • Epigraph •Euphemism •Euphony  •Flashback  •Form  •Hyperbole  •Foreshadowing •Imagery •(Situational) Irony  •(Verbal) Irony  •(Dramatic) Irony  •Juxtaposition  •Litotes •Meiosis •Metaphor •(Extended) Metaphor •(Implied) Metaphor •(Mixed) Metaphor •Metonymy •Malapropism  •Mood  •Motif  •Onomatopoeia •Oxymoron •Paradox •Paralipsis •Parallel Structure •Parody •Periphrasis •Personification •Polysyndeton •Pun •Rhyme •Sarcasm •Simile •Soliloquy •Stream of Consciousness •Symbol  •Synecdoche •Synesthesia •Tone •Tragic Flaw  •Understatement  •Zeugma

Step 2: For each act of Hamlet, choose one device and create a literary device analysis assignment. Follow the format of the example below precisely.

Literary Device Glossary Act One: Alliteration in Hamlet

Alliteration is the use of repeated sounds (usually consonants) at the beginning of words for various poetic effects. When used properly, alliteration places special emphasis on words essential to the meaning of the poem or passage or creates sound effects resonant with the ideas or events of the text.

Example: “A little more than kin and less than kind.” (1.2.67)

Description and Effect: Hamlet’s first words, as an aside in response to Claudius, are this alliterative line which repeats the ‘l’ sound in “little” and ‘less” and the ‘k’ in the words “kin” and “kind”. “Kin” and “kind” are worthy of the emphasis the alliteration imbues, as his mother’s “o’er hasty” marriage to his father’s murderer Claudius is the initial conflict and impetus for the plot (2.2.60). “Kin” and “kind” are juxtaposed with their descriptors “more” and “less” to suggest that Hamlet resents the marriage and his new position within his restructured family. He and Claudius are now “more than kin” in that his uncle is now his father – that is, twice related; further, the line, taken with a bit of sarcasm on the word “little”, suggests Hamlet’s lack of love and respect for Claudius who he values at “little more than kin.” The second half of the sentence, “less than kind”, reiterates his distaste for Claudius. Shakespeare surely intended “kind” to be also read as “natural”; in other words, the marriage of Claudius and his mother is unnatural, even “incestuous” (1.2.162). Further, Hamlet may be implying that Claudius is of a less worthy stock than he or his Father, as in “less than” their “kind”. That Hamlet’s opening line is phonetic wordplay rich with multiple connotations fits well with his wit and his inscrutability. The less obviously alliterated measuring words “little” and “less”, spoken as an aside rather than a direct verbal confrontation, underscore Hamlet’s “measured” thinking, his introspective nature and lack of commitment to decisive action that will haunt and torment him as his tragic flaw throughout the play.

Notice:

The first part is a formal definition in complete sentences. As a resource for definitions of the terms, use a literary glossary, not a standard dictionary; paraphrase definitions.

The second part is a quote of the passage that contains an example of the device you have defined; include an MLA citation.

The third part is the analysis. The analysis clarifies the use of the device in the quotation, provides basic context of the situation, discusses, in depth, the contributions the device makes to the meaning of the passage (D>E), and attempts to connect the device and its meaning to large issues such as character or plot development and thematic ideas.

Hey DingBat!

Are you still reading this?

What is the significance of that little life detail?
...

You left your Psychology text in my room.