William Shakespeare's HamletThere are millions - literally - of resources available online. You just have to search. Some will be added to this page and if you find anything else that is excellent, let me know so I can add it here for the whole class. More resources will be added almost daily, so keep checking this page.
Click here to download a the slides used in the introduction lesson. Most of them are photos of London, theatres and so on but you might like to review them. Look up YouTube for notesThere are thousands of Hamlet resources on YouTube. A good basic one to start with is the enotes talks. Here is the introduction. Look up the rest.
Your Hamlet AssessmentYou will write a formal essay of about 1000 - 1500 words. You will come up with your own topic. You must select secondary sources and use them to develop your understanding of Hamlet.
Your essay will be assessed against AS 3.8. The links below take you to the relevant parts of the NZQA website. Achievement Standard English 3.8 Assessment tasks: Assessment task 3.8A "Let's Get Critical, Critical" Assessment Task 3.8B "Through a Critical Lens" Exemplars with annotated comments for 3.8A Exemplars with annotated comments for 3.8B Using critical texts (1)Introduction
There are a great many questions that can be asked about the play. Some of these are listed below. One of them could be the starting point for your internal assessment. Note, though, that you cannot use one of these questions verbatim: you need to frame your own question and essay title. 1. Did Hamlet feign madness so well that he did eventually go mad in reality? 2. Why does Hamlet delay his revenge on Claudius? 3. Did Hamlet really love Ophelia? 4. Does Hamlet hate women? 5. Was Claudius a good king? 6. How old is Hamlet? 7. What makes the play a tragedy? 8. Why are the minor characters relevant? 9. Why are there so many questions throughout the play? 10. What is Hamlet’s view of humanity? Task Write a one-page answer to a question about Hamlet, using a secondary source and your own opinion, as well quotations from the play. Propose a question to ask about the play. You could focus on one of the following: · A character · A theme (eg revenge, filial obligation, the nature of humanity, love, trust, deception, death) · Imagery (eg decay, corruption, classical references, celestial images, animals, body parts) Answer your question by reading (at least some of) AC Bradley’s lecture. Quote him. http://www.shakespeare-navigators.com/bradley/ Then evaluate Bradley’s answer by stating your own opinion. Can you argue against his points? Some of the answers to the above questions can be found in AC Bradley’s essay. Don’t forget to quote from the play to support the points you make. Easy option Start here: http://www.shakespeare-navigators.com/hamlet/questions.html . Select a question, then read Bradley’s answer. See if you agree with him. More of a challenge Use some of the questions here to focus your reading of Bradley’s lecture. http://www.shmoop.com/hamlet/questions.html http://cla.calpoly.edu/~dschwart/engl339/hamlet.html http://www.shakespeare-online.com/topics/hamlettopics.html Even more of a challenge See what other critics have written about Bradley’s lecture. Blend two critics’ ideas together. Eg. Bradley argues that Hamlet suffers from “profound melancholy” and this is why he delays. Harold Bloom remarks that Hamlet changes significantly between Act IV and Act V, and describes Hamlet’s attitudes to life and death as stoical, sceptical, nihilistic, finally settling for disinterestedness. Introduction to PsychoanalysisClick here are the slides used in class to summarise Freud and Lacan with some application of their ideas to the play Hamlet. See also Sian Evan's book entitled Through the Literary Looking Glass and the essay entitled "Hamlet Psychoanalysed" which is downloadable as a pdf via the button in the RHS column.
YouTube - Psychoanalytic InterpretationIntroduction to tragedyHow to read difficult academic essaysStructuring your essay.Your overall structure will be this:
Here is an example of a title, an abstract, followed by an example body paragraph. Knowing a Hawk from a Handsaw: the Madness of Prince Hamlet
Abstract
“I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw.” Hamlet’s confession to Rozencrantz and Guildenstern is often misinterpreted by unobservant audiences as meaning that sometimes he really is mad. Much has been written about Hamlet’s madness. Andrew Bradley boldly argues that Hamlet was not mad but was close to madness, while Harold Bloom is more subtle in his interpretation of “Shakespeare’s enigmatic intellectual” (Bloom, 1999 p 407). Bloom emphasises that Hamlet has been misinterpreted for four centuries and he himself describes the play as “a dance of contraries” (Bloom, 1999, p. 407). This essay will argue that Hamlet does not come close to madness; rather, he is completely and utterly in full possession of all his faculties throughout the play. He merely is meticulously careful about the personae he projects to the rank and gross unweeded garden of Denmark. Bradley’s argument that Hamlet comes close to madness is not supported well with evidence from the play. Act II, scene ii, best demonstrates this. When talking with Polonius, Hamlet adopts his “antic disposition” as he teases Polonius with lines such as, “You are a fishmonger” (II, ii, 174). However, whan talking with Rozencrantz and Guildenstern, he philosophises about “what a piece of work is a man” (II, ii, 299) in a highly articulate way. If he were close to madness, as Bradley claims, then surely Hamlet would lack the ability to switch on and off his madness depending on whom he talking to. ... More help can be found on your GoogleDrive document. Read the Ten Key Strategies section. Even more help can be found by clicking on this link to Mr Schaumann's Planning Template. This will give you some alternatives to the model outlined above. No method is the one correct method. You should choose a method that suits you best. The last word on the deadline for your 3.8 essayThere are several checkpoints in this assessment so your progress can be monitored. The final deadline is 3.10pm on Monday 12th May 2014. You must submit work electronically and be able to demonstrate its authenticity. You will also need to sign a declaration of authenticity electronically.
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The button above opens a YouTube clip which summarises the entire play.
Critical TextsThe buttons below will be referred to in class. They will open another window/tab with a critical text for you to read. Your assessment involves using critical texts to inform your understanding of an aspect of Hamlet.
The button above takes you to Purdue University's online writing lab. There are dozens of very useful resources.
Read the soliloquies closely. The play's central themes and motifs are evident there. You were given paper versions with some discussion questions. Here they are as Word documents.
The full text version might be more useful for some people because it is searchable for key words. Eg. searching "Gertrude" will take you to the very bit Bradley discusses her.
The button above will allow you to download a Word version of the handout used in class to take notes on Freud and Lacan from the Evans book.
The button below will allow you to download a pdf of a critical essay called "Hamlet Psychoanalysed" Some bits have been highlighted for you and they can be used as a starting point. This is especially useful if you are taking a Freudian or Lacanian interpretation.
The other buttons below take you to other useful sources. |