HAMLET Act V: QUESTIONS





















V, i
1. In some editions of Hamlet the "gravediggers" are not  called gravediggers but clowns. Why at this point in the play does Shakespeare resort to comic relief  ?
2. What is the dispute they have, and what is the riddle and its answer?
3. Why do you think Shakespeare at this point for the first time lets us now know Hamlet's age?
4. How does Hamlet  react to being told, "This same skull, sir, was Yorick's skull, the King's jester"?
5. What dramatic irony extends over much of this scene? What affect does it have?
6. Why does Laertes quibble with the priest officiating at his sister's burial? Where and how has this been foreshadowed  in this scene and elsewhere in the play?
7. Why at this point in the play do Laertes and Hamlet have such radically different opinions of each other?
8. What do we learn from Gertrude's farewell to Ophelia? What do you think of what she says? What would Polonius have thought?
9. What does the priest's treatment of his sister cause Laertes to do? How is this counterpoint to the comic relief earlier in the scene?
10. Why does Hamlet so assertively announce himself, "This is I, Hamlet the Dane" ? Why is Hamlet so angry?
11. Explain why Hamlet jumps into the pit dug for Ophelia's coffin?
12. What  do you think were Hamlet's true feelings for Ophelia?
V, ii
1. How did Hamlet sidestep Claudius' plot to have him put to death in England? (He tells Horatio.)
2. Why do or don't you think killing now may be easier for Hamlet?
3. How does Hamlet react to the idea of the match? How does Hamlet expect to do and why does he go ahead with it? How does this reflect the "new" nature of Hamlet, revealed in V, i? 
4. What is the nature of Hamlet's speech to Laertes before they fence?
5  How do Hamlet and Laertes get wounded?
6. How does Hamlet get his final revenge?
7. How do the characters who entered this scene die?
8. What is Hamlet's final act as King of Denmark?
9. Why does Hamlet entreat Horatio to stay alive?
10. Why is Fortinbras' presence important at the end of the play?

I hope you enjoyed the play. 

Recall Hamlet's references throughout the play to the decay of the body, and Denmark. Scene one is a culmination of the concerns Hamlet has expressed about mortality and decay throughout the play. (Here we have an example of a literary term T.S. Eliot coined, known as the objective correlative.)  Please read this scene aloud at least twice. The gravediggers speak in colloquial  lower class Elizabethan English, so carefully read the liner notes relating to their dialogue to appreciate both their graveyard humor as well as Hamlet's.

a FOIL

For those of you not in attendance on Friday please pay attention. A foil,  pronounced like aluminum foil, is a character who contrasts with another character (usually the protagonist) in order to highlight various features of that other character's personality, throwing certain characteristics into sharper contrast or focus. A foil serves to stress and highlight the distinctive temperament of the protagonist. 

HERE IS ANOTHER DEFINITION:

A foil is a secondary character who contrasts with a major character; in Hamlet, Fortinbras and Laertes, whose fathers have been killed, are foils for Hamlet.  As we have observed in class, Shakespeare employs Fortinbras four times in the play as a foil to Hamlet. And Laertes, a man of  precipitous action, also serves as a foil to the dilatory Hamlet on multiple planes.

Your Classmates Answers

Sonnet/Poetry Test.
Had you collectivelly taken the test, without the use of cell phones, you would have received a grade of 100%. Your classmates did answer the questions correctly.  Learn from them. Please rewrite each test questions as a sentence with a correct answer.  I am asking you to use this test as a learning instrument.
HERE ARE YOUR CLASSMATES' ANSWERS:

1. Italian love song: Katherine

2. Italian: Lam

3. Dante: Stephanie

4. Petrarch: Susan

5. Italian Sonnet: Jeanette

6. octave: Kenny

7. 8 lines: Kenny

8. sestet: Malthen

9. 6 lines: Farrid

10. personification: Nyasia

11. quatrains: Brandon

12. 14th Century: Chandanie (in essay)

13. 1609: Kenny

14. personification: Katherine

15. ababcdcdefefgg: Victor

16. quatrains: Amy

17. couplet: Chrisma

18. alternating rhyme: Chandanie

19. masculine: Ana

20. feminine: Tiffany

21. personification: Brittany

22. repetition: Maurice

23. asks a question: Yenifer

24 a. the lines of the poem: Malthen

      b. a summer's day compared to a person: Brandon

25. iambic pentameter: Raymond

26. when the endings are spelled the same but sound different: Stephanie

27 a. words last syllables are spelled differently or the same and sound the same:Yennifer

      b. rhyme that occurs within a single line of verse: Melida

28. But: Tiffany

29. introduces the antithesis: Yennifer

30. vowel: Victor

HAMLET Act IV: QUESTIONS

ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS IN WRITING BY MONDAY:
IV, i
1. What can we infer about Gertrude's compliance with Hamlet's requests (III, iv)?
2. Why do you or don't you believe that Gertrude is deceiving Claudius?
2. How does Claudius respond to the death of Polonius. Does he understand the implications of what Hamlet did? Explain.
3. What does this scene reveal about Claudius' regency (39-41)?
IV, ii
1. What metaphor does Hamlet introduce in referring to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and what metaphor did Hamlet use in referring to them earlier in III, ii ?
IV, iii
1. Why is Claudius sending Hamlet to England.
2. Why does Claudius tell Rosencrantz and Guilenstern what the letter he has given them contains?
3. How does Hamlet speak to King Claudius? What does it reveal?
4. What do you think Claudius is keeping secret from Gertrude and why?
IV, iv
1. Why do you think Fortinbras enters the play at this point? (Remember the literary term foil ? - Go to the "FOIL Posting.")
2. What sort of judgement does the Captain make about the place they are fighting for? How does Hamlet describe it?
3. Where is Hamlet going when he meets the Captain?
IV, v
1. What do we learn about the state of Gertrude's soul from her aside?
2. Why do you think Shakespeare has Ophelia sing songs at this point in the play?  (Remember Susan's performance of them in class.) What affect do they have?
3. How does Laertes propose to revenge his father's death? How does this compare with Hamlet's?
4. With what is Claudius threatened? How do you think Claudius handles the emergency?
5. How does Laertes respond to Ophelia?
IV, vi
1. What surpriise is contained in the letter Horatio receives and read on stage? Where is Hamlet now?
IV, vii
1. How has Claudius convinced Laertes of his innocence?
2. Why in Hamlet's letter to Claudius does he say he wants to see him "alone"?
3. How will Claudius and Laertes use Laerte's reputation to get revenge?
4. What would Laertes do to get revenge? How does this compare to Hamlet?
5. How and why did Ophelia die?  (How does this differ from the way her death is described in V, i?)
6. How does Laertes respond to his sister's death?
  Happy Halloween 

HAMLET Act III: QUESTIONS

"The play's the thing /Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King." (last lines Act II)

WRITE ANSWERS TO THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS: (Hand them in by Wednesday.)

III, i :

1. What does Claudius learn from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern?

2. Why is Claudius' aside in this scene of such importance?

3. Why is Hamlet's soliloquy placed where it is in this scene?

4. How can or can't you tell if Hamlet knows he is being spied upon during the "Nunnery Scene?"
Why do Hamlet's use of the word "remember" and Ophelia's use of the word "remembrances" resonate
so painfully. Who is the "one" referred to in the line "all but one?"  Why is this stated? Why do you think Hamlet  treats Ophelia the way he does? Do you think he no longer loves her? Explain. (Remember lines earlier in the play: "Frailty, thy name is woman."?)

5. Why does Polonius think it is necessary for him to spy on Hamlet and Gertrude for Claudius?

III, ii

1. How does the beginning of this scene offset the tension generated by the preceding one, and what does it reveal about Hamlet?

2. In what way does Hamlet praise Horatio. Why does he do so?
3. Why is writing the "mousetrap" the only thing Hamlet has done to exact revenge on Claudius?

4. How do Hamlet and Ophelia interact before the performance? Why does he lie his head where he does?

5. How is the play different from what you expected?

6. How does the play within the play deviate from what the ghost of Hamlet's father recounted in Act I ?

7. What have Claudius and Hamlet learned about each other as a consequence of the play?

III, iii

1. What has Claudius decided to do with Hamlet?

2. What do we learn about Claudius in his "prayer" soliloquy? Why can't he ask for forgiveness?

3. When Hamlet enters, why doesn't Hamlet kill Claudius? What is ironic about Hamlet's decision?

III, iv

1. How successful is the conversation between Gertrude and Hamlet? What goes wrong even before

Polonius' death. Why does Gertrude call for help?

2. Explain why you think Gertrude knew or did not know Claudius had killed King Hamlet?
3. What do you think of how Hamlet speaks to his mother

4. Why does the ghost appear, who sees him, and what is his message?
5. Should we see King Hamlet's ghost in this scene. Why, why not?

6. What are Hamlet's final instructions to his mother?

To understand the movement of Act III, you may want to chart the entrances and exits of characters. Make note of how Shakespeare transforms and juxtaposes movement within and between the scenes. This will enable you to appreciate Shakespeare's stage craftmanship.  Remember dramatic irony in Hamlet relies both
on the use of space and the utterance of words.

Please note that your text varies considerably from the Oxford University text of Hamlet in regard to what we touched upon in class today. Immediately before the "To be or not to be" soliloquy the stage directions in the Oxford text read: "Claudius and Polonius [hide behind the arras]. Enter Hamlet."  Your text has Polonius and Claudius move to the rear of the stage, but not necessarily in a conscious effort to spy on Hamlet. There is a big difference, since their spying during this speech, adds tension and pregnancy to Hamlet's words, colors Claudius' lines which end the first scene, and foreshadows what happens later in the play. You may want to go onto Youtube, type in Hamlet, and view the third video down from the top -Act III, i.  or Sir Lawrence Olivier's performance of this soliloquy. 

John Milton's Petrarchan sonnet

"For Books are not absolutely dead things, but doe contain a potencie of life in them to be as active as that soule was whose progeny they are; nay they do preserve as in a violl the purest efficacie and extraction of that living intellect that bred them."  John Milton
 Sonnet: On his Blindness

              John Milton (1608-1674) 
 

When I consider how my light is spent,
    Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
    And that one talent which is death to hide,
    Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my maker, and present
    My true account, lest he returning chide,
    Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?
    I fondly ask; but Patience to prevent   
That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need
    Either man's work or his own gifts, who best
    Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best, his state
Is kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
    And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
    They also serve who only stand and wait.

n.b. (note well) This is a Petrarchan sonnet. John Milton was one of Mary Shelley's favorite poets and he is the author of Paradise Lost.  In writing Frankenstein: Or the Modern Prometheus Shelley quoted from his poetry extensively - as she also did from both her husband's and Wordworth's.

Scorn Not the Sonnet (Sonnet/poetry test tomorrow)

               William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

Scorn not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frowned,
Mindless of its just honours; with this key
Shakespeare unlocked his heart; the melody
Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound;
A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound;
Camoens soothed with it an exile's grief;
The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf
Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned
His visionary brow: a glow-worm lamp,
It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faeryland
To struggle through dark ways; and, when a damp
Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand
The Thing became a trumpet, whence he blew
Soul-animating strains -alas, too few!