Hamlet Test

What age was England in?

golden age (improved living conditions & economic development)

True or false: Queen Elizabeth never meant to inherit the throne because she was third in line

True (brother died of tuberculosis @ 15 & sister also died)

What was Queen Elizabeth’s nickname?

The Virgin Queen (never married)

How long did Queen Elizabeth rule for?

44 years

True or false: Queen Elizabeth hated the arts

False - she LOVED the arts (Elizabethan Theatre)

London Living Conditions

* Most were poor, despite improvements (90%)
* Very violent, crowded
* Plague was rampant (lockdown to slow spread)
* Colors showed class (earth - peasants, purple - royalty)
* Royalty would donate clothing to theatres (become costumes)

3 reasons Master of Revels would monitor and shut down theatres

* Theatres were crowded & unsanitary (rampant plague)
* production held in middle of day & people wouldn’t attend work (lighting issues)
* city officials believed plays promoted immoral thinking & behavior

Shakespearean Theatre

exclusively Shakespeare plays

Elizabethan Theatre

an play written during her rule

What seats were the cheapest (peasants)?

floor to the stage was the cheapest - groundlings

Basic outline of The Globe

* thriving business of actors, income, permanent
* plays held in afternoon, little setting, costumes from royalty
* no bathrooms - unsanitary
* 3 levels (social hierarchy)
* circular structure
* wooden
* open ceiling
* rebuilt 3 times - 1 fire, 1 housing, 1 nearby
* held 2000 spectators
* opened in 1599 & built by Lord Chamberlain’s men

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Shakespeare’s acting group was named

Lord Chamberlain’s Men

What was the beginning of Shakespeare’s life known as?

“The Lost Years”

Shakespeare’s upbringing

* born in Stratford upon Avon, England
* Glove maker/mayor
* early education but no university

Who did Shakespeare marry?

* Anne Hathaway
* 3 children - 1 child then twins (2 girls, 1 boy)
* Boy died at 8 years old - Hamnet

How many sonnets did Shakespeare write?

* 154
* Fair youth - 126 sonnets, young male in pain from lack of love
* Dark lady - dangerous, immortality
* Cupid - God of Romance, only 2

How many plays did Shakespeare write?

* 37 plays


* Comedies - light heated, miscommunication, happy ending
* Histories - historical figures
* tragedies - Hamlet, many die
* borrowed storylines, impressive rhetoric, universal themes, soliloquies

To be or not to be soloiloquy

* 3 quatrains
* ends with a couplet
* iambic pentameter

Laertes

* FOIL to Hamlet - avenge father’s death almost immediately (versus Hamlet who waited)
* Returns from Paris when Polonius died
* Challenges Hamlet to revenge duel
* Was suspicious of Hamlet & Ophelia’s relationship → royalty

King Claudius

* Murdered old King Hamlet (poison in ear)
* to gain Crown & marry Gertrude
* Feels guilty

Ophelia

* Innocence → madness & grief following poor treatment by Hamlet & death of her father
* Father’s death led to her madness because Hamlet killed him & hid his body

Polonius

* lighthearted, comedic character
* Irony - plot heightens at his death
* Consular to the throne
* father to Laertes & Ophelia
* Lord Chamberlain (head of royal household)
* Disapproves of Hamlet & Ophelia
* Gives consent for Laertes to study in Paris

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern

* loyal to king & were not allowed much freedom to defy
* initially concerned for Hamlet
* Hamlet turned against them w his paranoia
* They help the king lead Hamlet to his death in England (until he escapes)

Horatio

* Loyal friend to Hamlet (stuck through madness)
* Betrays his country & king to help Hamlet
* Offers to drink poison so he can die with Hamlet
* Lives to tell Hamlet’s story
* Studies at University of Wittenberg w Hamlet

Queen Gertrude

* initially ill actions (marrying her deceased husband’s brother)
* questioning loyalty to her son with his insanity
* potentially proves love by choosing to drink Hamlet’s chalice of poison

Gravediggers

* indifference towards the death of Ophelia → due to social status & the treatment Ophelia received because of her status
* singing despite death - used to it

Young Fortinbras

* father killed by King Hamlet
* seeks to take over Denmark in revenge bc his father should’ve received it
* avenges his fathers death → gets land after tragic ending

Fortinbras

* killed by King Hamlet to keep Denmark & got all land of Norway

Yorick

* old jester of the court
* skull that Hamlet holds as he contemplates morality & social status
* Hamlet remembers his impact on childhood

Osric

* Tells Hamlet about the duel Claudius & Laertes planned to kill Hamlet at
* Never disagrees with anyone
* Warns the people of Denmark about Fortinbras’s arrival

Allusion

a reference in a work of literature to something outside the work, especially to a well-known historical or literary event, person, or work

* Biblical stories or Catholic beliefs (It hath the primal eldest curse upon’t, A brother’s murder)
* Priam’s slaughter & hecuba’s reaction (Hamlet asking for the play)
* Alexander & Julius Caesar (mortality of man)

Invective

insulting language

Pun

a play on words that are identical or similar in sound but have sharply diverse meanings.

Inversion

a literary device in which the normal order of words is reversed to achieve a greater effect

Symbolism & Foreshadowing

something that represents a sign of something else & shows something that will happen in the future.

* Yorick’s skull represents mortality
* Rosemary - remembrance
* Pansies - thought
* Daisies - innocence
* Rue - regret, sorrow, repentance

Simile

a directly expressed comparison that typically uses “like” or “as”

Antithesis

the use of contrasting concepts, words, or sentences within parallel grammatical structures.

* “To be or not to be”

What literary term is: “A knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear”

* Invective
* Personification

What literary term is: “Besides, to be demanded of a sponge! Ay, sir, that soaks up the king’s countenance, his rewards, his authorities”

* Invective

What literary term is: Frailty, thy name is woman!

* Invective

What literary term is: “Not where he eats, but where he is eaten”

* Pun

What literary term is: “Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain”

* Inversion

What literary term is: “Here’s some rosemary. That’s for remembrance. Please love remember. And here’s some pansies. They’re for thoughts”

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* Symbolism
* Foreshadowing

What literary term is: “Mad as the sea and wind when both contend which is the mightier”

* Simile

What literary term is: “Be soft as sinews of the newborn babe”

* Simile

What literary term is: “The body is with the king but the king is not with the body”

* Antithesis
* Paradox

Elision

Removing part of a word to shorten it. Could be an unstressed syllable, consonant, or letter from a word or phrase (contractions)

What literary term is: “The undiscovere’d country, from whose bourn / No traveller returns”

* Elision

Double entendre

a figure of speech that can be understood in two different ways.

What literary term is: “Faith, her privates we. / In the secret parts of Fortune?”

* Double Entendre

Paradox

a statement that contradicts itself, or that most be both true and untrue at the same time

What literary term is: “I must be cruel to be kind”

* Paradox

Metaphor

a comparison is expressed without the use of a comparative term like “as” or “like”

What literary term is: “Take arms against a sea of trouble”

* Metaphor

What literary term is: “The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune”

* Metaphor

Blank verse

unrhymed lines but with regular metrical pattern

iambic pentameter

each meter has five sets of iambs, unstressed and stressed

What literary term is: “Thou turn’st my very eyes into my soul”

* Elision

anadiplosis

repetition of words so that the second clause starts with the same words that appeared in the previous

What literary term is: “To die to sleep; / To sleep, perchance to dream”

* Anadiplosis

Enjambment

line is cut off before its natural stopping point, transition between lines

What literary term is: “And by opposing end them. To die-to sleep, No more; / and by a sleep to say we end”

* Enjambment

Aporia

speaker poses a question or statement that exhibits doubt or confusion

What literary term is: “With a bare bodkin?”

* Aporia

Exposition

a piece of writing that explains characters, setting, mood, time, etc

Synecdoche

Figure of speech in which a part is used to represent the whole

Quatrain

stanza with four lines

Tercet

3 lines

Couplet

a two line stanza, usually with end-rhymes the same

Who said: “There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember. And there is pansies, that’s for thoughts”

Ophelia

Who said to who: “Besides, to be demanded of a sponge!... Ay, sir, that soaks up the king's countenance, his rewards, his authorities. But such officers do the king best service in the end. He keeps them, like an ape, in the corner of his jaw, first mouthed to be last swallowed. When he needs what you have gleaned, it is but squeezing you and, sponge, you shall be dry again”

* Hamlet to Rosencrantz
* Invective, Metaphor, Simile

Who said to who: “Mad as the sea and wind, when both contend which is the mightier”

* Gertrude to Claudius (about Hamlet’s madness)

Who said to who: “Not where he eats but where he is eaten”

* Hamlet to Claudius (about Polonius)

Who said to who: “Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain”

* Claudius to Rosencrantz & Guildenstern & Gertrude

Who said to who: “O Hamlet, speak no more: Thou turn’st my very eyes into my soul, And there I see such black and grained spots as will not leave their tinct”

* Gertrude to Hamlet

Who said to who: “No medicine in the world can do thee good: In thee there is not half an hour of life”

* Laertes to Hamlet

Who said to who: “Perhaps he loves you now, And now no soil nor cautel doth besmirch the virtue of his will. But you must fear: His greatness weighed”

* Laertes to Ophelia (trashing Hamlet’s royalty)

Who says to who: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

* Hamlet to Horatio

Who says to who: “The body is with the king but the king is not with the body.”

* Hamlet to Rosencrantz & Guildenstern (about Polonius’s body)

Who said: “Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay, / Might stop a hole to keep the wind away. / O, that the earth which kept the world in awe / Should patch a wall t’ expel the winter’s flaw!”

* Hamlet in the graveyard

Who said: “To be or not to be, that is the question: Whether tis’ nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles And by opposing end them.”

* Hamlet

Who said: “The lady doth protest too much, methinks”

* Gertrude (reaction to the Queen’s reaction to the King’s death in the play)

Who said: “O, I am slain!”

* Polonius

Who said to who: “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so”

* Hamlet to Rosencrantz & Guildenstern

Who said to who: “a knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear”

* Hamlet to Rosencrantz & Guildenstern

Who said: “a look so piteous in purport/as if he had been loosed out of hell/ To speak of horrors”

* Ophelia to/about Hamlet

Who said to who: “How now? A rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!”

* Hamlet to Polonius

Who said: “Bear Hamlet like a soldier to the stage, For he as likely, had he been put on, To have proved most loyal”

Young Fortinbras

Who said: “From her fair and unpolluted flesh May violets spring! I tell thee, churlish priest”

* Laertes (about Ophelia)

Who said to who: “**My Lord, I have remembrances of yours, That I have longed long to re-deliver. I pray you receive them now”**

* Ophelia to Hamlet (returning items from their “relationship”)

Who said to who: I am justly killed with my own treachery

* Laertes to Hamlet

Who said to who: Amazement on thy mother sits. I step between her and her fighting soul… Speak to her Hamlet.

* King Hamlet (Ghost) to Hamlet

Who said: For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune.  I have some right of memory in this kingdom.

Young Fortinbras

Who said to who: Do you come here to whine?  To outface me by leaping in her grave?

* Hamlet to Laertes

Who said to who: The serpent that did sting thy father’s life / Now wears his crown

* Ghost to Hamlet

Who said to who: **This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man**

* Polonius to Laertes

Millais Painting of Ophelia

* Floating in the river before death
* Sad but beautiful - similar to description of death in the novel
* Botanical setting - willow & flowers present
* Poppies: death
* Violets: around her neck (faithfulness & modesty)
* Palm & eyes upwards

Themes of the play

* Action versus Inaction
* Hamlet & Laertes foil
* Madness/Mental Decline
* Hamlet
* Ophelia’s suicide
* Revenge
* Gertrude betrays Hamlet by marrying uncle
* Hamlet betrays Ophelia
* Hamlet wants revenge on Claudius for his father
* Mortality/Contemplation of life
* suicide vs life
* equality after death
* Corruption/Reality
* Claudius murdering Hamlet
* Society is destroyed by corruption of government

General structure of the play (LARGE OUTLINE)

* Hamlet returns home from studies abroad to find his father deceased and mother remarried uncle
* Hamlet meets ghost of King Hamlet who tells him he was murdered by Claudius with poison
* Hamlet sets up a play to determine if Claudius is guilty before he takes action. Determines the ghost was right.
* Hamlet chose not to kill Claudius when he saw him praying (INACTION - foil to Laertes)
* Hamlet contemplates whether he should kill Claudius or not until the end of the play
* Hamlet makes many mistakes with his indecisiveness and madness: killing Polonius, hesitating to kill Claudius, Ophelia’s suicide
* Hamlet hid Polonius’s body
* Hamlet “kills” Rosencrantz and Guildenstern upon their arrival in England
* Gertrude died from poisoned drink, Claudius was forced to drink the poison by Hamlet, both Hamlet & Laertes were cut by the poisoned sword and perished
* Fortinbras arrives, reclaims Denmark, and praises Hamlet

MARCELLUS: O, farewell, honest soldier:

  Who hath relieved you?

FRANCISCO: Bernardo hath my place.

  Give you good night.

MARCELLUS: Good now, sit down, and tell me, he that knows,

  Why this same strict and most observant watch

  So nightly toils the subject of the land,

  And why such daily cast of brazen cannon,

  And foreign mart for implements of war

  Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task

  Does not divide the Sunday from the week.

  What might be toward, that this sweaty haste

  Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day?

  Who is’t that can inform me?

HORATIO: That can I; (15)

  At least the whisper goes so. Our last King,

  Whose image even but now appear’d to us,

  Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,

  Thereto prick’d on by a most emulate pride,

  Dared to the combat; in which __our valiant Hamlet—__ (20)

  For so this side of our known world esteem’d him—

  Did slay this Fortinbras; who by a seal’d compact,

  Well ratified by law and heraldry,

  Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands

  Which he stood seized of, to the conqueror;

  Against the which, a moiety competent

  Was gaged by our King; which had return’d

  To the inheritance of Fortinbras,

  Had he been vanquisher, as, by the same covenant

  And carriage of the article design’d,

  His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young Fortinbras,

  Of unimproved metal hot and full,

  Hath in the skirts of Norway here and there

  Shark’d up a list of lawless resolutes,

  For food and diet to some enterprise

  That hath a stomach in’t; which is no other—

  As it doth well appear unto our state—

  But to recover of us, by strong hand

  And terms compulsatory, those foresaid lands

  So by his father lost. And this, I take it,

  Is the main motive of our preparations,

  The source of this our watch and the chief head

  Of this post-haste and romage in the land.

BERNARDO: I think it be no other but e’en so.

  Well may it sort that this portentous figure

  Comes armed through our watch, so like the King

  That was and is the question of these wars.

\n Horatio’s long speech provides (line 15):


1. Plot summary
2. Character development
3. Exposition
4. Suspense
5. Rising action

3. Exposition