1. HAMLET UNIT "What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god!"

2. ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS 1.What is our duty/responsibility to the state? To ourselves? To our loved ones/family? 2.Why are appearances not always reality? 3.What is the nature of revenge? 4.What causes us to act? To delay? 5.How does our culture/history affect us and our interactions with the world around us? 6.What is corruption and how does it "infect" our lives?

3. OBJECTIVES  Define by example the terms tragedy and tragic hero..  Trace Hamlet’s evolving psychological and emotional state and how his condition is reflected in his soliloquies.  Analyze the characters and their relationships to each other.  Discuss the techniques Shakespeare uses to convey character and character relationships to his audience.  Identify and analyze the use of comic relief.  Explore and analyze a drama through various critical lenses.

4. VOCABULARY  Marxist Criticism  Archetypal Criticism  Feminist Criticism  Tragedy  Tragic Hero  Motif  Allusion  Aside  Soliloquy  Metadrama/Metafiction  Pun  Catharsis

5. HAMLET “The greatness of Shakespeare’s technique lies in the way he constructs this momentum through intense action, rich language, and layer upon layer of metaphor and symbols...”  Set in Kingdom of Denmark  1601-1603?  Corresponds to a legendary figure in Denmark’s history called AMLETH

6. HAMLET  Hamlet is the only play that has inspired its own cult, and there's even a name for it: Hamletology, the study of all things Hamlet.  It's been performed more than any other play in the world, and more has been written about it than any other literary work.  Rarely performed in its entirety, Hamlet is the longest play Shakespeare wrote.

7. HAMLET  There are more than 45 movie versions of the play, ranging from Amleto (Italy) nad Khoon ka Knoon (India) to Moi, Hamlet (France), Hamile: The Tongo Hamlet (Ghana), and Hamlet: The Trouble with Hamlet (United States).  According to the British critic John Trewin, "There has been a debate on every minute" in the play.

8. HAMLET  It has inspired twenty-six ballets, six operas, and dozens of musical works.  The Hamletologist Ib Melchior notes: "There have been Hamlet cigars, bicycles, beer and laundry mats, Hamlet jewelry, games, paper dolls, and business establishments called Hamlet."

9. EVOLUTION OF TRAGEDY Tragedy: “a form of drama exciting the emotions of pity and fear Its action should be single and complete, presenting a reversal of fortune, involving persons renowned and of superior attainments, and it should be written in poetry embellished with every kind of artistic expression."

10. CATHARSIS The writer presents "incidents arousing pity and fear, where with to interpret its catharsis of such emotions.” (by catharsis, Aristotle means a purging or sweeping away of the pity and fear aroused by the tragic action).

11. THE TRAGIC HERO  His/her disastrous end results from a mistaken action (hamartia) + free choice, which in turn arises from a tragic flaw or from a tragic error in judgment.  Often the tragic flaw is hubris, an excessive pride that causes the hero to ignore a divine warning or to break a moral law.  It has been suggested that because the tragic hero's suffering is greater than his offense, the audience feels pity.

12. TRAGEDY ACCORDING TO ARISTOTLE  Involves a person of noble birth - Status  Fatal flaw (often hubris) causes tragic error (hamartia)  There is a reversal of fortune (Peripeteia) - rooted in the idea of the Wheel of Fortune  Hero recognizes error and experiences suffering  Recognition – hero’s action results in self-awareness or self-knowledge  Catharsis occurs

13. WHEEL OF FORTUNE  Created by Roman Scholar named Boethius  Concept in medieval and ancient philosophy  Refers to the unpredictable nature of FATE  Goddess FORTUNA spins it randomly

14. TRAGIC HEROES  Aristotle A man (god, hero, high- ranking official) rises to power and then falls (usually through utter desolation and death) To blame are the hero’s tragic flaw (or hamartia) and fate One typical cause is hubris (excessive pride), while others are just pawns of fate  Renaissance Belief in greater control over own destinies Hence, this tragic hero much more responsible for his own downfall. To Elizabethans, this “waste of human potential” more tragic than the vagaries of fate

15. HUMANS AND RELIGION  (Shakespeare’s time (1564-1616) with Queen Elizabeth as monarch)  Humans have the potential for development.  Traditional Christian ideas are questioned as people begin to see everyday life as meaningful and as an opportunity for noble activity.  Rulers were God’s agents, and heavens would reflect if a king were killed

16. MEN AND WOMEN  Women had a lower social status than men  Marriages arranged, esp. for wealth  Heroic men were celebrated Elizabethan man- talented courtier, adventurer, fencer, poet, conversationalist. Also witty, eloquent, and examines own nature and causes of his actions

17. ORDER  People very concerned with order and “great chain of being” existed Plato’s idea that order exists within all things and among all things, based on complexity, from sand to heaven and God If this order is maintained, there is harmony, but if broken, all are upset and suffer

18. RELIGION AND GHOSTS  Protestant Protestants do not believe in ghosts, only Heaven and Hell (England is Protestant during Shakespeare’s time) Demons could assume likeness of dead and plague humans Hamlet and Horatio are Protestant (1517 Martin Luther posts 95 Theses on All Saints Church in Wittenberg)  Catholic Believe in Limbo and Purgatory, and possibility of returning to earth from these regions (Ghost of Hamlet is clearly in a Purgatory-like location based on diction analysis )

19. SHAKESPEARE  Hence, Shakespeare leaves us with some choices… Is Hamlet responsible for his own downfall as a result of his inability to act and failed attempt at revenge, or is he a hapless pawn of evil forces that have machinated the enlightened prince’s downfall?

20. LANGUAGE

21. COMMONALITIES?  The following exchange occurs in Henry IV, Part 1, between the obese and high-living Falstaff and the chief justice. Lord Chief Justice : “Your means are very slender and your waste great.” Falstaff: “I would that my means were greater and my waist slenderer.”  Mercutio a character in Romeo and Juliet who is characterized by his wit and lack of seriousness, says the following as he lies dying: “Ask for me tomorrow and you shall find me a grave man.”

22. PUNS  A pun is a figure of speech which consists of a deliberate confusion of similar words or phrases for rhetorical effect, whether humorous or serious. Bad puns are often considered to be cheesy. Also known as paronomasia.  Other examples: A vulture boards a plane, carrying two dead possums. The attendant looks at him and says, "I'm sorry, sir, only one carrion allowed per passenger." Kings worry about a receding heir line.

23. ILLUSTRATE?  Shylock, a character in The Merchant of Venice, feels mistreated and says: “You foot me as you spurn a stranger cur.”  When, in Antony and Cleopatra, Cleopatra thinks she is the victim of some fast talk, she says: “He words me girls, he words me.”

24. NOUNS TO VERBS  In a single work day, we might head a task force, eye an opportunity, nose around for good ideas, mouth a greeting, elbow an opponent, strong-arm a colleague, shoulder the blame, stomach a loss, and finally hand in our resignation.  This is called verbing--using nouns (or occasionally other parts of speech) as verbs.  Verbing is a time-honored way of coining new words out of old ones, the etymological process of conversion (or functional shifting).  Sometimes, it's also a kind of word play.

25. ILLUSTRATE?  King Henry IV, who was not fat, was called “portly.”  A servant, who intends to hurry, tells his mistress that he will go with all “convenient speed.”  When Antony makes an alliance with Octavius in Julius Caesar, he calls him a “competitor.”

26. EVOLUTION OF WORDS  Examples of words that have changed meaning Awful - This meant ‘full of awe’ i.e. something wonderful, delightful, amazing. However, over time it has evolved to mean exactly the opposite. Manufacture - From the Latin meaning ‘to make by hand’ this originally signified things that were created by craftsmen. Now the opposite, made by machines, is its meaning.

27. EXAMPLES?  King Henry IV says the soil of England will no longer “daub her lips with her children’s blood.”  The course of young love is described as “swift as a shadow, short as any dream, brief as lightening.”  “But soft, what light through yonder window breaks. It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.”

28. METAPHORS  Metaphors are used to help us understand the unknown because we use what we know in comparison with something we don't know to get a better understanding of the unknown.  The simplest and also the most effective poetic device is the use of comparison.  Metaphors use the verb "to be."  It might almost be said that poetry is founded on two main means of comparing things: simile and metaphor.  We heighten our ordinary speech by the continual use of such comparisons as "fresh as a daisy," "tough as leather," "comfortable as an old shoe," "it fits like the Paper on the wall," "gay as a lark," "happy as the day is long, pretty as a picture." These are all recognizable similes.

29. 5 STAGES OF ACTION 1.Encroachment – Protagonist takes on too much Makes a mistake that causes his/her “fall” This mistake is often unconscious (an act blindly done, through over-confidence in one’s ability to regulate the world or through insensitivity to others) Still violates the norms of human conduct

30. 5 STAGES OF ACTION 2.Complication – Building up of events aligning opposing forces Leads inexorably to the tragic conclusion

31. 5 STAGES OF ACTION 3.Reversal – The point at which it becomes clear that the hero’s expectations are mistaken His/her fate will be the reverse of what he had hoped The vision of the dramatist and audience are same

32. 5 STAGES OF ACTION 4.Catastrophe – Exposes the limits of the hero’s power Dramatizes the waste of his/her life Piles of dead bodies remind us that the forces unleashed are not easily contained Elaborate subplots which reinforce the impressions of a world INUNDATED with evil

33. 5 STAGES OF ACTION 5.Recognition – Audience (sometimes hero, too) recognizes the larger pattern Assumes the vision of his/her life held by dramatist and audience New perspective lets hero see the irony of his/her actions Adds to the poignancy of the tragic events

34. ACT I DISCUSSION  Claudius’s crimes (fratricide and regicide) plus his usurpation and “incestuous” marriage mark him as the …….  Hamlet must engage with him to confront this corruption, and in doing so, he must confront his own perceived ……  Other characters lack of trust, the presence of the ghost, and the concept of __________________ are all evidence that something is indeed rotten in the state of Denmark.  What imagery is frequently used as an important indicator of this theme?

35. ACT I, SCENE 1  What details in Scene 1 introduce the theme?  After watching the first scene, describe the mood and atmosphere conveyed?  How accurate of a representation is this to the play?

36. THE CHARACTER OF CLAUDIUS  Let’s take a closer look at the character of Claudius.  In small groups, gather either Claudius’s positive or negative behaviors from Scenes 2, 4, and 5.  Present this information to the class for the following discussion.

37. THE CHARACTER OF CLAUDIUS  Discussion What, then, is the overall picture Shakespeare paints of this character? How far are his qualities genuine? Or is he merely presenting a slick veneer? Does one aspect of him outweigh another? Why? Why not?

38. WORDS, WORDS, WORDS  In pairs, explore Hamlet’s feelings of disillusionment which so frequently inform the uneasy atmosphere at court.  Closely analyze the language of his soliloquy using the worksheet provided. If we do not finish this in class, please finish it for homework.