HAMLET
BY
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Advanced Placement English Literature
Name: _______________________
We will be reading and discussing the play in class. In groups of two to five, read according to the
schedule below. A quiz will follow the reading of each act on the day indicated. Except in extreme
cases, absences will not excuse students from the reading.
Quizzes will cover the material from the act as well as questions about the “Famous Lines” from
the section. To prepare for the quizzes, take notes on the famous lines listed below and answer the
study guide questions.
Study Guides
Act I: http://edweb.tusd.k12.az.us/dherring/apdocs/hamletsg1.pdf
Act II: http://edweb.tusd.k12.az.us/dherring/apdocs/hamletsg2.pdf
Act III: http://edweb.tusd.k12.az.us/dherring/apdocs/hamletsg3.pdf
Act IV: http://edweb.tusd.k12.az.us/dherring/apdocs/hamletsg4.pdf
Act V: http://edweb.tusd.k12.az.us/dherring/apdocs/hamletsg5.pdf
Reading Schedule
Monday, January 4 – Wednesday, January 6
Thursday, January 7
Friday, January 8 – Monday, January 11
Tuesday, January 12
Wednesday, January 13 – Friday, January 15
Tuesday, January 19
Wednesday, January 20 – Friday, January 22
Monday, January 25
Tuesday, January 26 – Friday, January 29
Monday, February 1
Monday, February 8
Notes
I.i – I.v, Pages 1-25
Quiz on Act I and Shakespeare Notes
II.i – II.ii, Pages 26-43
Quiz on Act II
III.i – III.iv, Pages 43-66
Quiz on Act III
IV.i – IV.vii, Pages 66-84
Quiz on Act IV
V.i – V.ii, Pages 84-101
Quiz on Act V
Hamlet Final Exam
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
• Born in Stratford-upon-Avon
• Married Anne Hathaway in 1582
• Children: Susanna (b. 1583); twins Judith and Hamnet (b. 1585); Hamnet died in 1596
• Moves to London, works an actor and playwright in early 1590s
• Published Venus and Adonis, a long narrative poem in 1592 and The Rape of Lucrece in 1593
while the theaters were closed because of the plague
• 1590s through 1612 he writes most of his plays
• In 1599 the acting company, The King’s Men, of which Shakespeare is an actor, dramatist, and
shareholder, opens the Globe Theater across the River Thames from London
• At some point between 1610 and 1613, he returns to Stratford-upon-Avon and lives as a
comfortable landowner with his wife and his two daughters and their husbands
• In 1623, Mr William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies, also know as the first
folio, is published
Famous Lines
For each of these famous lines, know the speaker, the listeners, the context and meaning, and the
significance of the line.
Act I
A little more than kin and less than kind. [I.ii.65]
O, that this too, too sallied flesh would melt. [I.ii.129]
…frailty, thy name is woman! [I.ii.146]
A countenance more in sorrow than in anger [I.ii.230]
…the primrose path of dalliance [I.iii.50]
This above all: to thine own self be true [I.iii.78]
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark [I.iv.90]
Murder most foul, as in the best it is [I.v.27]
Leaver her to heaven [I.v.86]
…one may smile and smile and be a villain [I.v.108]
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy [I.v.165-66]
Act II
…brevity is the soul of wit [II.ii.90]
More matter with less art. [II.ii.95]
Though this be madness, yet there is method in ‘t. [II.ii.201]
…there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so. [II.ii.241-42]
What a piece of work is a man… [II.ii.288]
I am but mad north-north-west; when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw
[II.ii.349-50]
What’s Hecuba to him, or he to her [II.ii.516]
…the devil hath power
T’ assume a pleasing shape [II.ii.556-57]
The play’s the thing [II.ii.561]
Act III
To be or not to be—that is the question [III.i.56]
The glass of fashion and the mold of form,
Th’ observed of all observers [III.i.149-50]
The lady doth protest too much, methinks. [III.ii.212]
A king of shreds and patches [III.iv.104]
…’tis the sport to have the engineer
Hoist with his own petar [III.iv.211]
Act IV
How all occasions do inform against me [IV.iv.33]
There’s such divinity doth hedge a king [IV.v.121]
Act V
Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio [V.i.159]
Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay [V.i.183]
Sweets to the sweet [V.i.213]
There’s a divinity that shapes our ends [V.ii.10]
There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow [V.ii.194-95]