Introduction to Western Classics

: Introduction to Western Classics

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* Excerpts from Shakespeares Hamlet The Complete Works of William Shakespeare The text is available at: http://shakespeare.mit.edu/

(You can find this URL on our course website)

1. : William ShakespeareTranslator: : , 2001(213 )

2. Smith, Emma. The Cambridge Introduction to Shakespeare. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. [electronic resource in Chang Gung University Library]

Lamb, Charles and Mary Lamb. Tales from Shakespeare. London: Penguin, 1995. In print and on the internet at: http://shakespeare.palomar.edu/lambtales/lambtale.htm

Rothwell, Kenneth S. A History of Shakespeare on Screen: A Century on Film and Television. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2004. Perng, Ching-Hsi. Chinese Hamlets: A Centenary Review. Multicultural Shakespeare: Translation, Appropriation and Performance (2005): 51-62.Davies, Michael. Hamlet: Character Studies. London: Continuum, 2008.Leverenze, David. The Women in Hamlet: An Interpersonal View. Signs 4.2 (Winter 1978): 291-308.Camden, Caroll. On Opelias Madness. Shakespeare Quarterly 15.2 (Spring 1964): 247-255.

Watch Laurence Oliviers Hamlet (1948) for 20 minutesPay attention to * the atmosphere, * the black and white effect

Last weeks reading assignmentPart 1
Part 1 From: SCENE I. Elsinore. A platform before the castle. FRANCISCO at his post. Enter to him BERNARDO BERNARDO Who's there? To: FRANCISCO Bernardo has my place. Give you good night. Exit

Interpret the following:ACT ISCENE I. Elsinore. A platform before the castle.

FRANCISCO at his post. Enter to him BERNARDO BERNARDO Who's there?FRANCISCO Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold yourself.BERNARDO Long live the king!

FRANCISCO Bernardo?BERNARDO He.FRANCISCO You come most carefully upon your hour.BERNARDO 'Tis now struck twelve; get thee to bed, Francisco.FRANCISCO For this relief much thanks: 'tis bitter cold,And I am sick at heart.

BERNARDO Have you had quiet guard?FRANCISCO Not a mouse stirring.BERNARDO Well, good night.If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.FRANCISCO I think I hear them. Stand, ho! Who's there?Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS

HORATIO Friends to this ground. MARCELLUS And liegemen to the Dane.FRANCISCO Give you good night. MARCELLUS O, farewell, honest soldier: Who hath relieved you? FRANCISCO Bernardo has my place. Give you good night. Exit

From: http://shakespeare.mit.edu/hamlet/full.html

Share your thoughts
1. What is the significance of the first scene in the play? What does it tell you about the castle or the country?

Modern Translations and Summaries on-line
Modern Translation can be found on the internet, such as: http://www.enotes.com/hamlet-text/act-i-scene-i eNotes

Summaries can be found on the internet, too, such as Shakespeare Navigatorshttp://www.shakespeare-navigators.com/

Last weeks reading assignmentPart 2
From: HAMLET To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortuneTo: Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

Interpret the following:HAMLET 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? To die: to sleep; No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep; To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause: there's the respect That makes calamity of so long life; For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, The insolence of office and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscover'd country from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprises of great pith and moment With this regard their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action.--Soft you now! Act 3 Scene 1 From: http://shakespeare.mit.edu/hamlet/full.html

Lets consider the modern translations

Share your thoughts
2. What does the line To be or not to be mean? How would you relate the line to Hamlets trouble and mindset?

Shakespearean English
Old EnglishMiddle EnglishPre-modern EnglishModern English

* Renaissance English

Hamlets Prejudice against Women
Let me not think on't--Frailty, thy name is woman!-- A little month, or ere those shoes were old With which she follow'd my poor father's body, Like Niobe, all tears:--why she, even she-- O, God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason, Would have mourn'd longer--married with my uncle, My father's brother, but no more like my father Than I to Hercules: within a month: Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears Had left the flushing in her galled eyes, She married. O, most wicked speed, to post With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!

The Weeping Rock in Mount Sipylus, Manisa, Turkey, has been associated with Niobe's legend From Wikipedia

Hercules from Wikipedia

Hamlets bad treatment of Ophelia
HAMLET Get thee to a nunnery: why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?
Picture from http://www.marysidney.com/

Opelias Death
http://www.victorianweb.org/art/crisis/ch2n3.html

Claudius Death
HAMLET The point!--envenom'd too! Then, venom, to thy work. Stabs KING CLAUDIUSAll Treason! treason! KING CLAUDIUS O, yet defend me, friends; I am but hurt. HAMLET Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damned Dane, Drink off this potion. Is thy union here? Follow my mother. KING CLAUDIUS dies

Questions to Ponder
Character Analysis1. Is Hamlet an admirable character?

Women in the Play
2. Is Gertrude to be blamed for her hasty marriage?

This weeks reading assignmentAct 3 Scene 4
* Focus on the following part:From: SCENE IV. The Queen's closet. Enter QUEEN GERTRUDE and POLONIUS LORD POLONIUS He will come straight. Look you lay home to him:To: HAMLET [Drawing] How now! a rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead! Makes a pass through the arras LORD POLONIUS [Behind] O, I am slain! Falls and dies