Wednesday, 26 September Hamlet soliloquy review

In class: review of soliloquy from Act II.  Note thematic connections.

Reading schedule: Wednesday, 26 September- finish Act III
Thursday, 27 September Act IV scenes i-iv.
Friday, 28 September finish Act IV
Monday, 1 October finish Act V.

Note: vocabulary 2 is due on Tuesday, October 9....get it in early. Paper on the way~~~~~~~~

Act II soliloquy...if you are absent, make sure you have watched this. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUfG2ozXbAM


Below is the soliloquy which you are resposible for in class.  It takes place at the very end of the act.  Why, I wonder?  What does it have to do with the theme of filial loyalty? fate? What does it tell us about Hamlet's state of mind?    His friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have just departed.

1.       Read through and underline any unfamiliar words

2.       Watch the video with Kenneth Branagh

3.       Reread, following along with your classmates.

4.       Define the words

5.       Paraphrase on a separate sheet of paper, noting any similes,  metaphors, allusions or tie-ins with a theme or the plot.

Now I am alone.                                                                     576
O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
Is it not monstrous that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit                             580
That from her working all his visage wann'd,
Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect,
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms to his conceit? and all for nothing!
For Hecuba!                                                                            585
What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her? What would he do,
Had he the motive and the cue for passion
That I have? He would drown the stage with tears
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech,                   590
Make mad the guilty and appal the free,
Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed
The very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I,
A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak,
Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,                    595
And can say nothing; no, not for a king,
Upon whose property and most dear life
A damn'd defeat was made. Am I a coward?
Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across?
Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face?                      600
Tweaks me by the nose? gives me the lie i' the throat,
As deep as to the lungs? who does me this?
Ha!
'Swounds, I should take it: for it cannot be
But I am pigeon-liver'd and lack gall                                     605
To make oppression bitter, or ere this
I should have fatted all the region kites
With this slave's offal: bloody, bawdy villain!
Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!
O, vengeance!                                                                         610
Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,
That I, the son of a dear father murder'd,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words,
And fall a-cursing, like a very drab,                                        615
A scullion!
Fie upon't! foh! About, my brain! I have heard
That guilty creatures sitting at a play
Have by the very cunning of the scene
Been struck so to the soul that presently                                 620
They have proclaim'd their malefactions;
For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ. I'll have these players
Play something like the murder of my father
Before mine uncle: I'll observe his looks;                                 625
I'll tent him to the quick: if he but blench,
I know my course. The spirit that I have seen
May be the devil: and the devil hath power
To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps
Out of my weakness and my melancholy,                                   630
 As he is very potent with such spirits,
Abuses me to damn me: I'll have grounds
More relative than this: the play 's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.

ACT II Questions    Be prepared to answer these in class tomorrow, using your text.
If you are absent, please copy the nine questions below and turn them in for a class participation grade. (or send the responses along!)

 1. Why does Polonius wish Renaldo to use “slips [such] as gaming…or drinking, fencing and quarrelling,” in other words a “bait of falsehood?”

        From II.ii.66-73

2. According to Ophelia, how was Hamlet dressed when he entered her sewing closet?

        From II.ii.66-73.

 

 

 

 

 

3. What does Polonius think is the reason behind Hamlet’s behavior?

       From II.ii.13-5.

 

 

 

4. What is the relationship between Hamlet and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern? What does the queen wish of them?

      From II.ii.10-19.

 

 

 

5. Explain the following and how it is ironic in terms of the words being spoken by Polonius.

       “Brevity is the soul of wit.”

 

 

 

6. What trick does Polonius employ to discover the truth about Hamlet’s madness?

      From II.ii.176-80.

 

 

 

 

7. Read Hamlet’s retort to Polonius’ question, “What is the matter, my lord?” Why does Polonius note “though there be madness, yet there is method in it.”

      From II.ii.211-24.

 

 

 

 

8. Explain this line said by Hamlet to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern: “There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.”

     From II.ii.268-70.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

9. The following is one of Shakespeare’s (and Hamlet’s) most famous speeches. Paraphrase, please.

I have of late--but
wherefore I know not--lost all my mirth, forgone all
custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily
with my disposition that this goodly frame, the
earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most
excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave
o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted
with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to
me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.
What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason!
how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how
express and admirable! in action how like an angel!
in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the
world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me,
what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not
me: no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling
you seem to say so.

 

 

 

 

10. What insight to Hamlet’s  personality and methodology does the following line spoken by him tell us?

“I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is
southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.”

From II.ii.403-4.