Spark Notes onHAMLET

Literary studies on a book are often called Notes, and some pub-lishers and websites have collections on them that are used by stu-dents and literature lovers. Some of the best known are:

Cliff’s Noteswww.cliffsnotes.com

York Noteswww.yorknotes.com

Barron’s Notesbarronsbooknotes.com

Macmillan Classic Guideshttp://us.macmillan.com/MacmillanSite/categories/General/Guides/Guides

For our 2011 work on MOBY DICKwe used the website BOOK RAGS:

www.bookrags.com

For this year’s work on William Shakespeare’s HAMLET we aregoing to get acquainted with a new website: SPARK NOTES.

www.sparknotes.com

Clicking on the following link, (or copying and pasting it on yourinternet browser’s address bar),

http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/hamlet/

you get to a page like this:

Now we are going to analyze its main features.

Main menu

The main menu directs you to other pages in the website.

SPARKNOTES: Notes on other books

NO FEAR: Text written originally in ancient English, rewritten innowadays language. This is VERY INTERESTING; for instance, youcan read passages in Hamlet (such as the ‘To be or not to be’monologue) in a modern style that you will understand much better.

TEST PREP: Helps you prepare exams on different subjects (notinteresting for non-English students).

VIDEO: Summaries of books in animated cartoons. Hamlet’svideo is VERY INTERESTING too.

SPARKLIFE and THE MINDHUT: Links and interactive projects.Some of this links are available in this page, on the right pannel.

Hamlet’s Video

VERY INTERESTING. You can watch a summary of the playclicking on the link. The story is told in about 8 minutes in a veryclear and simple language.

General info

Context: Shakespeare’s era (Elizabethan England), life, style, etc.

Plot Overview: Summary of the play, complete but not too long.

Character List: Very short descriptions, with some links to the in-dividual in-depth analysis of some of the characters in the next sec-tion.

Analysis of Major Characters: In-depth analysis of Hamlet,Claudius and Gertrude.

Themes, Motifs & Symbols: Explanation of these words andmain examples in the play:

Themes: The Impossibility of Certainty / The Complexity of Action / TheMystery of Death / The Nation as a Diseased Body.

Motifs: Incest / Misogyny / Ears and Hearing.

Symbols: Yorick’s Skull.

ADDITIONAL LINKS

The remaining sections are very complete and rather excessivefor our purposes, but if your English is good and you are very inter-ested, you may want to visit them.

Summary & Analysis

Summaries and commentaries of each scene of the play, withquotations and tracking of themes, motifs and symbols. You can usethem for punctual revision of details.

Study Tools

Complete toolbox for a literary study of the play.