Monday, Sept 17 Hamlet introduction

Missing: Vocabulary I Arianna
               Epiphany essay: Chris, Arianna and Nalia
Due today: Act I.i. reading
For Tuesday 18 September: Please read Act I.ii. and study* Hamlet's soliloquy 'O, that this too, too solid flesh would melt..." We will perform a close read of it on Tuesday.
For Wednesday 19 September: read Act I.iii and iv.
Thursday 20 September: finish Act I.
In class:
Hi everyone, it's Mrs Harmon, and for the next few weeks, we will be discussing Hamlet as a class. Today we will have a brief introduction to Shakespeare and Elizabethan ghosts, then I will turn the class over to you! Get ready--you will be asked to perform today!

Here is the clip of the opening scene of Hamlet we will examine closely:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-NLnsq3P7Y

Thanks!

Mrs. Harmon

Who's my partner?
Joe  and Chrishell
Aaron and Ashli
Allison and Chris
Ariana and Nick
Katherine and Heidi
Tamia and Austin
Tianna and Sierra
Nalia and Miranda
Kathy and Tarek
Zadejah and Mrs. Harmon

 What is a  soliloquy?

An act of speaking one's thoughts aloud when by oneself or regardless of any hearers, esp. by a character in a play. (note: you are responsible for this defintion by Tuesday)

* Be prepared to answer the following:
1. Who or what is the "Everlasting"?
2. What is Hamlet contemplating and why is this such a problem?
3. What exactly has happened that has angered him?
4. Hamlet makes this analogy: So excellent a king; that was, to this,
Hyperion to a satyr    

What does this mean?





5. To what does the "increase of appetite" refer?
6. Frailty, thy name is woman    What does this tell us about Hamlet's / Elizabethan society's / Western Christian attitude towards woman?  From what does it stem?
7. Take a peek at Niobe:
Based simply upon this sculpure, what do you think might have happened to her?
8. Hold on! Why does Hamlet consider his mom's marriage to Claudius "incestuous"?

HAMLET'S FIRST SOLILOQUY:

ORIGINAL TEXT: (I.i..133-164)

O that this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on't! O fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
But two months dead! — nay, not so much, not two:
So excellent a king; that was, to this,
Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother,
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on: and yet, within a month, —
Let me not think on't, — Frailty, thy name is woman! —
A little month; or ere those shoes were old
With which she followed my poor father's body
Like Niobe, all tears; — why she, even she, —
O God! a beast that wants discourse of reason,
Would have mourn'd longer, — married with mine uncle,
My father's brother; but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules: within a month;
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
She married: — O, most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
It is not, nor it cannot come to good;
But break my heart, — for I must hold my tongue!

Hi everyone, it's Mrs Harmon, and for the next few weeks, we will be discussing Hamlet as a class. Today we will have a brief introduction to Shakespeare and Elizabethan ghosts, then I will turn the class over to you! Get ready--you will be asked to perform today!

Here is the clip of the opening scene of Hamlet we will examine closely:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-NLnsq3P7Y

Thanks!

Mrs. Harmon