Research Paper: Overview
In this packet:
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Diagnosing Hamlet: Your Task
The Product: Requirements
The Annotated Bibliography
Everything You Need to Know About MLA
What Is Critical Theory?
Keep the Following in Mind…
Important Dates
Diagnosing Hamlet
The central mystery in it -- namely the meaning of Hamlet's
hesitancy in seeking to obtain revenge for his father's murder -has been called the Sphinx of modern literature. - Ernest Jones, Hamlet and
Oedipus, W.W.Norton, N.Y. 1976. p.22.
Dr. Laurentius M.D.: "How are you doing today,
Hamlet?"
Hamlet: "...I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost
all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and
indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition that this
goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a most sterile
promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look
you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical
roof fretted golden fire: why it appeareth nothing to me
but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors. ...Man
delights me not; nor woman neither, [sigh]" (1.3.303)
Dr. Laurentius: "Tsk tsk. My boy, it's obvious. You've
got a bad case of melancholy."
(http://web.uvic.ca/~mbest1/ISShakespeare/Resources/WorldView/humours.html)
http://www.thehumorousimage.com/images/p 1
Your (No Small) Task:
Imagine you are a psychologist who has been given the arduous task of diagnosing the central
character in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
Long has waged the debate over whether the plays central
character is mad, melancholy, or is merely feigning madness. (Or, in the process of playing the role of
mad man, does he actually lose his grasp on reality?) After seeing the ghost (?) of his late father,
Hamlet tells his friends that in an effort to seek revenge he may put on an antic disposition, short for
acting a bit “kooky.” For some the debate ends here: Hamlet feigns madness in order to accomplish
his goal. Others argue that Hamlet is mad; others contend that he is melancholy and deep in grief
and anguish. Still others suggest that in the process of playing the role of mad man, Hamlet indeed
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becomes mad. It is now your turn to decide. You must diagnose Hamlet as mad, melancholy, as one
who is feigning madness, or as one who becomes mad while playing a role. You will use the primary
text (the play) to help diagnose your patient, citing quotes and making direct references to the play
to support your argument. But you will also need to do more than this: you will need to find secondary
sources that help support your diagnosis. First, you
must begin to understand what it means to be
melancholy, what it means to be mad, what it means
to be overcome with grief, and what it means to take
on a role and perhaps be overcome. It will not be
enough to say: Hamlet is mad or Hamlet is
melancholy. You must dissect what these words mean
to you and to others. Reality is arbitrary. My reality
may not be yours. Madness to me may not be
madness to you. Therefore, you first task will be to get
a handle on these definitions and then begin to look
back at your patient’s history. Good luck!
The Product of your research will be a well
supported paper that strictly adheres to MLA format for research papers. The specific requirements
for Honors and College Prep. vary and are listed below.
British Literature: Honors
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5 page paper, strict MLA format for research papers, including a works cited page, and the
use of 12 point Times New Roman font
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5 secondary sources: at least 2 dictionaries (including one medical or psychological
dictionary); 2 print/book/journal articles that apply critical theory to the primary text; 1 credible
online source. Each source must be cited within the body of your paper.
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At least 5 in-text citations from the primary text that substantiate your thesis.
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A bibliography with annotations for two of your print or online sources
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Paper submission to turnitin.com
British Literature: College Prep
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3 page paper, strict MLA format for research papers, including a works cited page, and the
use of 12 point Times New Roman font
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3 secondary sources: at least 1 dictionary (medical or psychological dictionary); 1
print/book/journal article that applies critical theory to the primary text; 1 credible online
source. Each source must be cited within the body of your paper.
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At least 5 in-text citations from the primary text that substantiate your thesis.
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A bibliography with annotations for your print or online source
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Paper submission to turnitin.com
The (dreaded) Annotated Bibliography
A bibliography is a list of sources used for
researching a topic. Bibliographies are
sometimes called Works Cited, as the sources
listed for a bibliography are the sources you
will likely list on your Works cited page. A
bibliography includes the bibliographic
information (author, title, publisher, etc.) for
each of your sources. An annotated
bibliography includes a summary or “nutshell’
statement for each of your sources as well as
an overall evaluation of the source itself.
Annotated bibliographies are typically
standard at the college level. For our
purposes, I only want you to be exposed to an annotated bibliography; thus, you will write
an annotation for 1-2 of your sources, depending on your class.
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For each source in an annotated bibliography, you must do the following:
1) List the bibliographic information for the source. Source information MUST be in MLA format.
2) Write a “nutshell’ statement: a summary and evaluation of the source. What is the main
point of the source? What are the author’s main arguments?
3) Write a reflection statement. After summarizing your source,
you need to ask yourself how the information fits into your
research. Was this source helpful? How does it help support
and shape your argument? How will you use this source in your
paper?
The purpose of an annotated bibliography is to learn about your topic. While collecting sources is
useful, having to write annotations for each source forces a close reading of the material.
Annotated Bibliography Example
Elizabeth Thompson
Professor Stacks
English 102
20 August 2001
Stem Cell Research: An Annotated Bibliography
Holland, Suzanne. The Human Embryonic Stem Cell Debate : Science, Ethics, and Public Policy. Boston: MIT
Press, 2001.
This is the annotation of the above source. In this example, I am following MLA guidelines for the
bibliographic information listed above. If I was really writing an annotation for this source, I would now be
offering a brief summary of what this book says about stem cell research.
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The length of your annotation will depend on the assignment or on the purpose of your annotated
bibliography. After summarizing, you can now reflect on this source. How does it fit into your research? Is this
a helpful resource? Too scholarly? Not scholarly enough? Too general/specific? Since "stem cell research" is a
very broad topic, has this source helped you to narrow your topic?
Everything You Need to Know About MLA can be found at
the following Internet site:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/557/01/
All Sections in MLA Formatting and Style Guide:
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General Format
In-Text Citations: The Basics
In-Text Citations: Author-Page Style
Formatting Quotations
Footnotes and Endnotes
Works Cited Page: Basic Format
Works Cited Page: Books
Works Cited: Periodicals
9. Works Cited: Electronic Sources
10. Works Cited: Other Non-Print Sources
11. Additional Resources
12. Abbreviations in MLA
13. Works Cited Page: Other Print Sources
14. MLA Works Cited Example Page
15. MLA Update 2009
16. MLA Tables, Figures, and Examples
What Is Literary Criticism?
By definition, literary criticism is the informed analysis and evaluation of literature. Literary
criticism is developed and presented with sufficient evidence from the text and is presented
in a logical manner.
Your print source(s) must be examples of literary criticism. In other words, you must find
articles written by critics about the play. Books have been set aside for us in the library. The
librarians are there to help you in your search. Ms. Main has worked with the other British
Literature classes on their research papers and would be a good source to go to for
information. In addition, I suggest a random Google search to get you started: type hamlet
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and criticism, or hamlet and literary theory. Check Google book search. When in doubt
about the credibility of a source, ask!
Example of Literary Criticism
In her book Suffocating Mothers, Janet Adelman contends that Hamlet signals a pivotal point in
Shakespeare's dramatic vision, wherein the maternal element -- conspicuously absent from the
Henriad and Julius Caesar -- returns to cause "the collapse of the fragile compact that had allowed
Shakespeare to explore familial and sexual relationships in the histories and romantic comedies
without devastating conflict." [1] Hamlet, a play that centres on the crisis of the masculine subject
and its "radical confrontation with the sexualized maternal body," foregrounds male anxiety about
mothers, female sexuality, and hence, sexuality itself. [2] Obsessed with the corruption of the flesh,
Hamlet is pathologically fixated on questions of his own origin and destination -- questions which are
activated by his irrepressible attraction to and disgust with the "contaminated" body of his mother.
Hamlet's peculiar bond with his mother has been the focus of numerous productions of Shakespeare's
play on stage and screen. Influenced by psychoanalysis, filmed versions of Hamlet in particular have
emphasized the desire between sons and mothers and, in so doing, have uncannily reproduced the
play's own Oedipalized attachment to the maternal. Following Franco Zeffirelli's mother-centered film
(1990), Kenneth Branagh attempts to break with this tradition in his self-proclaimed "non-Oedipal"
Hamlet (1996). Sanitized and allegedly "Oedipal free," Branagh's Hamlet avoids any representations
of non-normative sexual desire, repressing the sexualized maternal body with a vengeance. In
contrast to Laurence Olivier's (1948) and Zeffirelli's adaptations, in which popularized notions of
psychoanalytic interpretation are foregrounded and exaggerated, Branagh's recent full-length film
displaces Hamlet's desire onto his surrogate father, who offers "metal more attractive" for this Hamlet
and, as we shall see, for Branagh himself. [3] It seems, then, that Branagh "doth protest too much," for
despite his efforts to ensure that his adaptation be "liberated" from the tradition of psychoanalyticallybased Hamlets, Branagh's Hamlet reproduces the Oedipal triangle in its most conspicuous,
paternalistic form, offering an epic homage to the patriarchal family romance -- Hollywood style.
Examples of Literary Theories:
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Timeline (most of these overlap)
Moral Criticism, Dramatic Construction (~360 BC-present)
Formalism, New Criticism, Neo-Aristotelian Criticism (1930s-present)
Psychoanalytic Criticism, Jungian Criticism(1930s-present)
Marxist Criticism (1930s-present)
Reader-Response Criticism (1960s-present)
Structuralism/Semiotics (1920s-present)
Post-Structuralism/Deconstruction (1966-present)
New Historicism/Cultural Studies (1980s-present)
Post-Colonial Criticism (1990s-present)
Feminist Criticism (1960s-present)
Gender/Queer Studies (1970s-present)
Keep the Following in Mind…
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Important Dates:
Tentative Thesis 25 pts (hw)
Date due:
Annotated Bibliography 30-50pts (hw)
Date due:
Outline 100 pts (hw)
Date due:
Final paper 100 pts (test x3)
Date due:
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