Friday, September 25 Claudius' monologue

Friday, September 25, Hamlet Act 1.ii  

Coming up: vocabulary quiz Friday, October 2...class handout / copy below. 
In class: vocabulary quiz Hamlet 2
               Claudius' speech, class analysis, annotation practice
               Claudius' character chart / graded class assignment (we watched this yesterday)
                Hamlet's first soliloquy: graphic organizer
         we will begin in class by annotating the text;  due on Monday, September 28.
So what happened in Act.i.?

Setting: On a dark winter night outside Elsinore Castle in Denmark

Characters: officers  Bernardo and Fransico keeping watch and then joined by another guard Marcellus. 

Plot: These three have seen an apparition for two nights. The ghost looks like the dead old King Hamlet. The ghost does not speak to them. The tree guards tell Horatio, Hamlet's best friend, who also sees the ghost. The ghost disappears at dawn when the cock crows.

Tone: mysterious, haunting, eerie

In Act 1 you are first introduce to King Claudius. Your job is to use this character chart and textual reference to describe his traits. How does Shakespeare develop the character of Claudius in his speech? Can we as the audience trust him to be a positive person? (use adjectives such as cunning, treacherous, ambitious, numb)
Annotation: a note of explanation or comment added to a text or diagram.

ACT I SCENE II	A room of state in the castle.
[ Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, HAMLET, POLONIUS, LAERTES, VOLTIMAND, CORNELIUS, Lords, and Attendants ]
KING CLAUDIUS	Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death
	The memory be green, and that it us befitted
	To bear our hearts in grief and our whole kingdom
	To be contracted in one brow of woe,
	Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature	5
	That we with wisest sorrow think on him,
	Together with remembrance of ourselves.
	Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen,
	The imperial jointress to this warlike state,
	Have we, as 'twere with a defeated joy,--	10
	With an auspicious and a dropping eye,
	With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage, *dirge- funeral song
	In equal scale weighing delight and dole,-- *dole-sadness
	Taken to wife: nor have we herein barr'd
	Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone	15
	With this affair along. For all, our thanks.
	Now follows, that you know, young Fortinbras,
	Holding a weak supposal of our worth,
	Or thinking by our late dear brother's death
	Our state to be disjoint and out of frame,	20
	Colleagued with the dream of his advantage,
	He hath not fail'd to pester us with message,
	Importing the surrender of those lands
	Lost by his father, with all bonds of law,
	To our most valiant brother. So much for him.	25
	Now for ourself and for this time of meeting:
	Thus much the business is: we have here writ
	To Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras,--
	Who, impotent and bed-rid, scarcely hears
	Of this his nephew's purpose,--to suppress	30
	His further gait herein; in that the levies,
	The lists and full proportions, are all made
	Out of his subject: and we here dispatch
	You, good Cornelius, and you, Voltimand,
	For bearers of this greeting to old Norway;	35
	Giving to you no further personal power
	To business with the king, more than the scope
	Of these delated articles allow.
	Farewell, and let your haste commend your duty. King Claudius Character Chart Hamlet by William Shakespeare Vocabulary Quiz Friday, October 2 The quiz will be 10 matching and 10 contextual sentences 1.     calamity- (noun) a great misfortune or disaster 2.     heir- (noun) a person who inherits or has right of inheritance in the property of another following the latter’s death. 3.     To confine- (verb) to shut or keep in 4.     commencement- (noun) beginning, start 5.     hypocrite- (noun) a person who pretends to have virtues, principles  6.     virtue- (noun) goodness 7.     to deprive-(verb) took away 8.     to harrow-(verb) distresses the mind or feelings 9.     imminent- (adjective) likely to occur at any moment 10.           incentive- (noun) something that encourages a person to do something or to work harder