Write down your name.

Write down your mother’s name.

Write down your father’s name.

Write down the name of your paternal uncle (if you have one. If you don’t, write down the name of a godfather or a man who is close to your family.)

Cross out your father’s name because he just died.

Draw a line connecting your mother’s name to your uncle’s name because two months have passed, and your mother just married your uncle.

Write a paragraph describing your feelings toward their marriage.

This isn’t Jerry Springer. This is Shakespeare.

The Tragedy of Hamlet: Background

The Tragedy of Hamlet -- 1602

Shakespeare’s longest play (1,530 lines) Often considered his greatest achievement Translated and performed more than any other

play in the world Requires from 4 ½ to 5 hours to perform Has inspired 26 ballets, 6 operas, 45 film

adaptations, and a “Simpsons” episode “To be or not to be” – the most quoted phrase in

the English language

Style

Shakespeare's Hamlet was a revolutionary departure from contemporary revenge tragedies, which tended to graphically dramatize violent acts on stage, in that it emphasized the hero's dilemma rather than the depiction of bloody deeds.

Shakespeare’s Audience

Belief in ghosts and in Purgatory (where one would “work off” sins not confessed or atoned for before death)

Belief in the power of confession – absolution through acknowledgement and remorse

Family # 1 – The Royals Prince Hamlet – university student (Wittenberg

in Germany) and son of the newly deceased King Hamlet of Denmark.

Claudius – brother of Hamlet’s dead father; Hamlet’s uncle; assumes the throne after marrying his brother’s widow

Gertrude – Hamlet’s mother, widow of former king; marries Claudius just 2 months after the death of King Hamlet

“Frailty, thy name is woman!” Ghost of King Hamlet

Family # 2 – The “Nobility” Polonius – Lord Chamberlain of the court

and Claudius’s chief advisor; Father of Laertes and Ophelia

Ophelia – daughter of Polonius, sister of Laertes; courted by young Hamlet before the action of the play begins

Laertes – son of Polonius, brother of Ophelia; Hamlet’s childhood friend presently fighting for Denmark in France

Family # 3 – The Usurpers

King Fortinbras – King of Norway, longtime enemy of old King Hamlet

Prince Fortinbras – Prince of Norway, on the move against Denmark as the turmoil unfolds

The FriendsHoratio – Hamlet’s most loyal

friend; the first to reveal the news of the Ghost to Hamlet

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern – boyhood friends of Hamlet; commissioned by Claudius to spy on Hamlet; now synonymous with betrayal

The Plot 11th-century Denmark, castle at Elsinore Bloody, barbaric plot serves as a backdrop

for the unhappy young modernist who is Shakespeare’s hero

Revenge tragedy: Unless there is a reason why the revenge is delayed, the play is over in one act. Young Hamlet, an intellectual and a dreamer, lives in the world of thought; he is torn between action and contemplation.

Hamlet’s Private Tragedy -- Indecision

Appearance vs. Reality

“Acting” vs. Honesty

Love vs. Hate

Self vs. State

Death vs. Life

Loyalty vs. Selfishness

Lust vs. Love

15 Suggested Discussion Questions

1 The ghost tells Hamlet to seek revenge but to “Taint nor let thy soul contrive against thy mother aught.” Does he succeed in this? Why or why not?

2 Hamlet says, “Nothing is either right or wrong but thinking makes it so.” Is he correct in regards to the world of this play? Do you think he’s correct in regards to the world in general?

3 Explicate this quote by stating who said it, to whom, regarding what, and how it is significant: “Frailty, thy name is woman.”

15 Suggested Discussion Questions Cont’d 4 Explicate this quote by stating who said it, to whom,

regarding what, and how it is significant: “This above all – to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.”

5 Explicate this quote by stating who said it, to whom, regarding what, and how it is significant: “What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals”!

6 Explicate this quote by stating who said it, to whom, regarding what, and how it is significant: “Suit the action to the word, the word to the action.”

15 Suggested Discussion Questions Cont’d 7 Explicate this quote by stating who said it, to whom,

regarding what, and how it is significant: “Let Hercules himself do what he may, the cat will mew, and dog will have his day.”

8 Explicate this quote by stating who said it, to whom, regarding what, and how it is significant: “There’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ‘tis not to come,’ if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all.”

9 Is Hamlet a static character? A full one or a flat one? A stock one? Does he have a foil? Describe the progression of his state of mind.

15 Suggested Discussion Questions Cont’d 10 Compare these three men : Hamlet, Laertes,

Fortinbras – How successful is action versus contemplation in this play?

11 Consider Hamlet’s friends – Horatio, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern – which are true friends, which are not, and why.

12 Discuss the leitmotif of poison. How is this idea or image used throughout the work and to what effect?

13 What, if anything, is actually “rotten in the state of Denmark”?

14 How is the leitmotif of a “play” used in this work? Who plays to whom and for what purpose?

15 What does Shakespeare accomplish with the Frenchmen’s scene?

Interview Questions TO HAMLET : Did you love Ophelia? TO HAMLET : Why did you hesitate in killing Claudius? TO GHOST: What do you expect of Hamlet? TO GERTRUDE : Are you guilty of anything and do you have any

regrets? TO OPHELIA: Are you guilty of anything and do you have any

regrets? TO CLAUDIUS : Why didn’t you try to kill young Hamlet much

earlier? TO SHAKESPEARE: What is Ophelia’s role in the play? TO POLONIUS : Why do you spy on people? TO POLONIUS : Why do you think Hamlet is insane? TO LAERTES: Why did you decide to kill Hamlet?

Connection to Hamlet? Discuss a thematic connection that exists between Hamlet and

Sonnet 146 below.

Poor soul, the center of my sinful earth, My sinful earth, these rebel powers that thee array; Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth, Painting thy outward walls so costly gay? Why so large cost, having so short a lease, Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend? Shall worms, inheritors of this excess, Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body's end? Then soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss, And let that pine to aggravate thy store; Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross; Within be fed, without be rich no more:

So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men, And Death once dead, there's no more dying

then.