1. Understanding Hamlet
“Who’s there?”

2. Kronborg-Helsingør

3. Act I, Scene 1 Note Horatio’s character
Why all of the military preparations?
Renaissance beliefs about ghosts and how man’s actions affect nature
Shakespeare’s poetry

4. Act I, Scene 2 What is your first impression of Claudius as a ruler?
How does he explain his hasty marriage to Gertrude?
How does he deal with the impending attack by Fortinbras?
What are his first words to Hamlet?

5. Hamlet’s first appearance
Hamlet alternates between two moods: destructive satire and inward melancholy
Outwardly destructive: uses puns and insults
How do the king and queen try to cheer him?
First soliloquy: inward melancholy. How does he differentiate between his father’s love for his mother and his mother’s love for his father? Does Hamlet have an Oedipus Complex?
More mood swings when Hamlet greets his friends!

6. Meet Laertes and his sister, Ophelia
What type of relationship do they have?
What advice does Laertes give Ophelia before he returns to school?
Her reaction?
Vocabulary:
Prodigal
libertine

7. Polonius’s Advice What advice does he give to Laertes?
Famous Lines?
What advice does he give to Ophelia? Her reaction?
Optional Assignment from The People, Yes by Carl Sandburg
Contrast Polonius’s advice (lines on page 43) with advice the father in Sandburg’s poem gives. Are they similar? Different? Which is better?

8. Hamlet Meets the Ghost
Shakespeare defines “the tragic flaw” (lines 25-40)
Corse=corpse
Why do Hamlet’s friends fear Hamlet speaking with the ghost alone?
Was Gertrude unfaithful while still married to Hamlet’s father?
How did the late king die?
What does the ghost want Hamlet to do about his mother?
What vow does Hamlet make his friends swear?
What is an “antic disposition”?

9. Act II, Scene 2 Meet Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
Voltemond brings news from Norway
Polonius has found “the very cause of Hamlet’s lunacy” and begins to “expostulate.”
“Brevity is the soul of wit”
Note Polonius’s strategy for discovering the truth behind Hamlet’s behavior. Pay attention to the connotations of his diction!

10. “Words, words, words”
Hamlet suspects Polonius’s devious plans and decides to have some fun.
Note Hamlet’s word play as he puts on an “antic disposition” and pretends not to recognize Hamlet.
Once more Hamlet uses puns and verbal irony as he swings to his outwardly destructive mood.
But Polonius will admit, “Though this be madness, yet there is method in ‘t.”

11. Fortune is a strumpet!

12. To Hamlet “Denmark’s a prison”
“There is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so!”
Why do Rosencrantz and Guildenstern raise the subject of ambition while talking to Hamlet?
“What a piece of work is a man…”
Man’s duel nature: “the paragon of animals” and “quintessence of dust.”

13. The Players are Here!
Why does Hamlet tell Rosencrantz and Guildenstern he is “but mad north-north-west”?
“An old man is twice a child.” Who? Meaning?
“Buzz, buzz”
Jephthah: a Biblical figure who sacrifices his daughter.

14. Why does Hamlet want to hear a speech from Virgil’s Aeneid ?
What do you know about The Trojan War?
Which two countries fought in this war?
What started the war?
Who were the greatest heroes of this war?
How did the war end?
Key names to remember: Priam, Paris, Achilles, Hector, Pyrrhus, Agamemnon, Menelaus, Helen, Hecuba, Odysseus

16. “A Pyrrhic Victory”
Why does Hamlet want to hear the speech about Pyrrus seeking revenge against the father of the man who slew Achilles?

17. “Fools and Madmen Speak the Truth.” Act IV, Scene 5
Despite her madness, what truths does Ophelia reveal?
Shroud=Burial garment
When sorrows come, they come not single spies,/But in battalions.”
“That drop of blood that’s calm proclaims me bastard.”
Cuckold=a man whose wife is unfaithful
Apostrophe: “O heat, dry up my brains!”

18. Next in Hamlet: Act IV, Scene 7
Claudius acquaints Laertes with the real story…
Claudius gives two reasons why he has not started criminal proceedings against Hamlet.
Claudius receives a letter from Hamlet in which Hamlet says he is “set naked upon [Claudius’s] kingdom.”
Why does Hamlet send this letter to Claudius?

19. Elements of Revenge Tragedy
Avenger must prove perpetrator’s guilt
Avenger faces perpetrator of the crime and tells him why he seeks revenge.
Revenge is “eye for an eye.
Avenger must acquaint everyone with the real story

20. “The Plan” to kill Hamlet
Lamond—the Frenchman
Rapier—also called a foil
Unbated=unblunted
Mounteback=quack doctor
Unction=ointment
Peruse=examine carefully
What’s wrong with this plan?

21. “Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia…”
What has happened to Ophelia?
What is confusing about the way Gertrude describes what happened?
Why might Gertrude embellish the story of Ophelia’s death?

22. Act V, Scene 2
What happened to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern? Horatio’s reaction?
How does Hamlet regain his heroic stature in the final scene of the play?
Purpose of Osric?
Letting go of control: “Let be.”
Tragedy: At the very moment Hamlet achieves a readiness for a noble life, his life is over.