Hamlet
Act 1 Quiz 25 points
Name _______________________
Identify (.5 point each)
1. Fortinbras
3. Gertrude
2. Laertes
4. Polonius
Understanding of Important Information (1.5 points each)
5. What is revealed about the recent political history between Norway and
Denmark? What political conflict is brewing between the two countries?
6. What is going on in Denmark that might explain the uneasiness of the guards as
they wait for the ghost to appear?
Inference (2 points)
7. What does the first act reveal about Horatio’s character? How is it revealed?
Application (3 points)
8. Explain what would be lost or gained by beginning a production of the play with
Scene 2 instead of with Scene 1.
Next to each passage, explain the meaning and significance of the lines (2 pts each):
9. Hamlet:
Seems, madam! nay it is; I know not 'seems.'
'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected 'havior of the visage,
Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,
That can denote me truly: these indeed seem,
For they are actions that a man might play:
But I have that within which passeth show;
These but the trappings and the suits of woe.
(Iii)
10. Hamlet
O, that this too too solid flesh would melt
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter!
(Iii)
11. Hamlet
Frailty, thy name is woman!—
(Iii)
Inference. Understanding motivation (2 points each):
12. What does Ophelia think about her relationship with Hamlet?
13. Contrast Ophelia’s reply to her brother’s advice to her reply to her father’s
advice.
Ophelia (to her brother)
Ophelia (to her father)
I shall the effect of this good lesson keep,
I shall obey, my lord.
As watchman to my heart. But, good my brother,
Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven,
Whiles, like a puff'd and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
And recks not his own rede.
Understanding of Important Information (1.5 each):
14. How was King Hamlet killed?
15. What does the ghost tell Hamlet to do? What does he specifically tell Hamlet not
to do?
Dramatic Technique (2 points)
16. Where are there implied stage directions in the following speech? What gestures
do the lines imply for the actor playing Hamlet?
HAMLET:
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. But come;
Here, as before, never, so help you mercy,
How strange or odd soe'er I bear myself,
As I perchance hereafter shall think meet
To put an antic disposition on,
That you, at such times seeing me, never shall,
With arms encumber'd thus, or this headshake,
Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase,
As 'Well, well, we know,' or 'We could, an if we would,'
Or 'If we list to speak,' or 'There be, an if they might,'
Or such ambiguous giving out, to note
That you know aught of me: this not to do,
So grace and mercy at your most need help you, Swear.