Monday, October 26, the plan!

CHARACTER REVIEW- who's who?  class handout.

Learning targets:  I can cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves the matter uncertain. 
I can analyze the impact of the author's choices regarding how to develop and relate elements of a drama.
I can determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings.

Essential question: How are words used to manipulate emotions and direct someone to their bidding? 


If you are absent, here is the film link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOkImi8n0Os&list=PL8653490E2C680C5C&index=22

Coming up: your take-home assessment on semi-colons is due this Thursday, October 29
 In class: Character review and paraphrasing Hamlet's soliloquy.  Class handouts / copies below





Where we left off on Friday:  Laertes had observed his sister Ophelia's mind as "a document in madness" (4.5.177) and also to "be revenged / Most thoroughly for [his] father" (4.5.135-6).
Hamlet asked about the armies crossing through Denmark, only to learn that Norway was taking some worthless land from Poland. He then concludes Act 4 with a soliloquy where he compares his serious purpose, that is his filial responsibility to avenge his father's death-especially since he now has empirical proof that Claudius is guilty-to the frivolous military campaign.

Act 4, scene 7   Claudius goads Laertes, and poses this question: "Laertes, was your father dear to you? / Or are you like the painting of a sorrow?" (108-109)
         Where have you heard something similar said by Hamlet?

What is King Claudius' plan for Laertes to revenge his father Polonius' death?

Claudius: Hamlet comes back: what would you undertake, 
125   To show yourself your father's son in deed
126   More than in words?

LAERTES: To cut his throat i' the church.

What is Claudius' plan?

 Claudius:
  No place, indeed, should murder sanctuarize;
  Revenge should have no bounds. But, good Laertes,
  Will you do this, keep close within your chamber. 
  Hamlet return'd shall know you are come home: 
  We'll put on those shall praise your excellence
  And set a double varnish on the fame
  The Frenchman gave you, bring you in fine together
  And wager on your heads. He, being remiss,
  Most generous and free from all contriving,
  Will not peruse the foils; so that, with ease,
   Or with a little shuffling, you may choose
   A sword unbated, and in a pass of practise
   Requite him for your father.

How is Laertes going to be double sure that Hamlet dies?

And Claudius has one more trick up his sleeve. What is it?



 
Name_______________________________

Identify the following, noting their relationships.

1. Hamlet  _________________________________________________________________________________

2. Gertrude _________________________________________________________________________________

3. Claudius _________________________________________________________________________________

4. Polonius _________________________________________________________________________________

5. Ophelia _________________________________________________________________________________6. Laertes _________________________________________________________________________________

7. Horatio _________________________________________________________________________________

8. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern _________________________________________________________________________________

9. Old King Hamlet _________________________________________________________________________________

Name __________________________________

Please respond to the questions as pertaining Hamlet’s soliloquy below from Act 4, scene 4

Background: Hamlet has just learned that Fortinbras, nephew to the former King of Norway is crossing through Denmark on the way to Poland to take some land. The land is worthless; nevertheless, Poland will defend this land, the outcome being that many people will die on both sides, and the fighting will cost much money.  Hamlet ponders this and notes that for the Norway and Poland there is passion and a goal over essentially nothing; yet he, who has a duty to revenge his father, has done nothing.

How all occasions do inform against me,                 And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,                            If his chief good and market of his time                 Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.                                   Sure, he that made us with such large discourse,                           Looking before and after, gave us not                 That capability and god-like reason                          To fust in us unused. Now, whether it be                             Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple 40                 Of thinking too precisely on the event,                  A thought which, quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom                 And ever three parts coward, I do not know                       Why yet I live to say 'This thing's to do;'                 Sith I have cause and will and strength and means                  To do't. Examples gross as earth exhort me:                        Witness this army of such mass and charge                 Led by a delicate and tender prince,                        Whose spirit with divine ambition puff'd                               Makes mouths at the invisible event,     50                 Exposing what is mortal and unsure                        To all that fortune, death and danger dare,                 Even for an egg-shell. Rightly to be great                              Is not to stir without great argument,                     But greatly to find quarrel in a straw                        When honour's at the stake. How stand I then,                 That have a father kill'd, a mother stain'd,                 Excitements of my reason and my blood,                             And let all sleep? while, to my shame, I see                         The imminent death of twenty thousand men,  60                 That, for a fantasy and trick of fame,                       Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot                 Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,                 Which is not tomb enough and continent                             To hide the slain? O, from this time forth,                             My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!

1.       How does Hamlet describe a human who only “market[s] his time / Be but to sleep and feed”? (34-35). 2.       What has god given man that distinguishes him from beasts? 3.       How does Hamlet describe someone who thinks “too precisely on [an] event?” (41). 4.       To what is Hamlet referring when he says there are “examples gross as earth exhort me”? (46). 5.       To what is Hamlet alluding when he speaks of the “egg-shell”? (53)? Reread the background material above if necessary. 6.       With what two reasons does Hamlet conclude that Norway and Poland go to battle and by inference most people?