Hamlet Act Four

* Take notes on your motif/thread.
* Take notes on characters and characterization; situation, events, and plot; essential question and other themes; interesting literary and rhetorical language; repetitions, contrasts, and other patterns. 
* 4.1-4.3 quote and explain the best joke/witty remark/mocking remark by Hamlet in these scenes.
* 4.4 By class time on Monday 12/8 in your "Hamlet's Soliloquies" document/paper follow the directions for writing responses to Hamlet's 4.4 soliloquy.
 * 4.5 & 4.7: Ophelia Speaks! In a Google doc/paper called "Ophelia Speaks," write an soliloquy for Ophelia by Thursday 12/11. We'll work on this in class on Tuesday too. Directions below:

Ophelia Speaks

Role: You are a playwright commissioned by a theatrical troupe to create a soliloquy (or monologue or letter written by Ophelia) that will be inserted into Hamlet.

Audience: Readers and viewers of Hamlet who want to understand Ophelia more deeply.

Format:       1. a soliloquy, monologue, or letter

                   2. 14+ lines*

3. The lines conclude with a rhyming couple in iambic pentameter. (*The other 12 or more lines may be in prose or in iambic pentameter# [blank verse).)

4. Try to use Elizabethan language (diction and syntax), or use language that does not stand out as obviously modern. (If you're looking to have some fun with Elizabethan language, here are a couple non-scholarly links to information for moderns about Elizabethan English: Faire Speak: Learn the Language and Speak Like a Pro: A Field Guide to Elizabethan English.) 

5. State where in the play you would insert the soliloquy (or monologue). (Would you create a 4.8? Would you place it somewhere in 4.5? Where? Be precise: act, scene, line. You could even, I suppose, create a 4.8 in which she returns as a ghost; or perhaps someone finds a letter she has written or a diary.)

6. Incorporate song lyrics and flower imagery. You do this a few different ways: you can make direct references to the songs and flowers referred to in 4.5); you can refer to other Elizabethan flower symbolism and other songs (more here).

7. Show Ophelia’s mind puzzling out and wrestling with her dramatic situation and inner consciousness (just as Hamlet does in his soliloquies). (Here is a link to a few Ophelia performances, some of which have been taken down by YouTube but others of which are still there. These might help you think about her shifting emotional state in relation to her situation after 3.4.)

Topic: What Ophelia is thinking and feeling at the moment in the play into which you decide to insert her soliloquy?

# Much of Hamlet is written in blank verse meaning most lines do not rhyme but they do follow a particular meter (a pattern of unstressed and stressed syllables). The meter is called iambic pentameter. “Iambic” means unstressed syllables are followed by stressed syllables: “And makes us rather bear those ills we have”. Pentameter means there are five iambs.

“…And makes us rather bear those ills we have,

than fly to others that we know not of…”

 
* 4.5 & 4.7: Compare how all the various characters react to trauma, tragedy, mystery, wrongdoing. We'll do this through conversation.
* 4.6 PIRATES!!!!!!!
*  In your "Hamlet Motif" document/paper do the following by class time on Wednesday 12/10:
1. Write down your motif.
2. Write down the act, scene, line of every place you noticed your motif in act four. (If you're thin on notes: Here you'll find searchable text.)
3. Write a paragraph in which you explore the role and significance of the motif in play so far.
4. Write down a quotation from act one that involves your motif. (Include act, scene, and line.)
Write a thorough explanation of what the quotation means (in context) and how the quotation develops the significance of the motif. 

 Coming next...
Act Five
* Take notes on your motif/thread.
* Take notes on characters and characterization; situation, events, and plot; essential question and other themes; interesting literary and rhetorical language; repetitions, contrasts, and other patterns. 
* 5.1 By Friday 12/12 in your "Odds & Ends" document explain how 5.1 explores various ways of reacting to death: Using at least one quotation explore how characters speak humorously about death in the first part of scene. Using at least one quotation explore how Hamlet speaks philosophically about death is the second part of the scene. Using at least one quotation explore how characters respond  personally  and emotionally to death in the final part of the scene.
* 5.1 Wait a minute...How did old it say Hamlet is? Nuh-uh. (Mr. Cook--surprise, surprise--has something to say about this.)
* 5.2 Who dies? (Or, perhaps, it would be easier to say who does not die?) How might the way people die be significant? How who doesn't die be significant? How does the way characters talk about death be significant?  

*  In your "Hamlet Motif" document/paper do the following by class time on Friday 12/12:
1. Write down your motif.
2. Write down the act, scene, line of every place you noticed your motif in act five. (If you're thin on notes: Here you'll find searchable text.)
3. Write a paragraph in which you explore the role and significance of the motif in play so far.
4. Write down a quotation from act one that involves your motif. (Include act, scene, and line.)
Write a thorough explanation of what the quotation means (in context) and how the quotation develops the significance of the motif.