Humanities Seminar 2009-2010
Weekly Paragraph for Hamlet
If you were directing the play or playing the title role, what effect would you try to achieve with Hamlet’s final soliloquy in Act I (I:v:92-112) “O all you host of heaven! O earth! What else?...” In your paragraph please explain a) how you would give shape to the internal movement within the selection and b) use the soliloquy to shape the end of Act I for the audience.
Due in class on Friday, 02 March.
Weekly Paragraph #2 for Hamlet
Paraphrasing Hamlet Choose a passage of approximately 20 lines and identify it by Act, scene, lines. Paraphrase the passage, preserving the line breaks. Here is an example from (II,ii,1-19). King: Welcome, dear Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Moreover that we much did long to see you, The need we have to use you did provoke Our hasty sending. Something you have heard Of Hamlet’s transformation—so I call it, Sith nor th’exterior nor the inward man Resembles what it was. What it should be, More than his father’s death, that thus hath put him So much from th’understanding of himself I cannot dream of. I entreat you both That, being of so young days brought up with him, And sith so neighbour’d to his youth and haviour, That you vouchsafe your rest here in our court Some little time, so by your companies To draw him on to pleasures and to gather, So much as from occasion you may glean, Whether aught to us unknown afflicts him thus That, open’d, lies within our remedy. Welcome dear Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Even though we longed to see you for the sake of seeing you, Your usefulness to us right now is the reason We sent for you so urgently. You must have heard About Hamlet’s “transformation”—I call it that Because neither his external appearance nor his inner life Resembles what it was. What might be the cause, Other than his father’s death, that has transformed him So completely that he’s unrecognizable I cannot imagine. I ask both of you-- Brought up together with him since childhood, And afterward intimately acquainted with him as a teenager and his demeanor-- To consent to stay here in our court A short time, so that you can hang around with him And get him to have fun again and gather, When the occasion presents itself without prying, Whether there’s something troubling him that he’s hiding Which, if we knew about it, we could fix. This assignment is due in class on Friday, 09 April. If you post your response to Hamlet paragraph #1 (above) in this thread, you can earn one point toward the term grade (same weight as a regular weekly paragraph!).
Recent Comments