Murder,
Revenge,
Love, and
Hamlet

• Scansion
• Elision
• Voiced Syllable
• Shared Line
• Iamb
• Trochee
• Dactyl
• Spondee
• Anapest
• Quatrain
• Blank Verse
• Free Verse
• Heroic Couplet
• Monometer
• Dimeter
• Trimeter
• Tetrameter
• Pentameter
• Hexameter
• Rhyme
• Ellipsis

• Read, understand and analyze
Shakespearean poetry/tragedy
• Identify a tragic hero and support with textual analysis
• Identify and analyze poetic elements as they affect the telling of a story, development of a character or emerging of a theme
• Analyze a theme as it carries throughout an entire work using textual support

Published in 1604

• Your father has just died
• Your mother marries your uncle
• You’re visited by the ghost of your dead father who tells you he was murdered by your new dad
• You have a girlfriend who is mentally unstable
• You have an unhealthy infatuation with your own mother

• Late medieval period in Denmark
• Hamlet feels the pressure to avenge his father’s death
– His father’s ghost visits him and reveals that
Hamlet’s uncle Claudius has murdered him in order to become king
– Hamlet struggles with trusting the ghost

- Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
- Claudius, King of Denmark, Hamlet’s Uncle
- Gertrude, Queen of Denmark, Hamlet’s Mother
- Polonius, Lord Chamberlain of Claudius’ court
- Horatio, Hamlet’s friend
- Ophelia, Polonius’s daughter, Hamlet’s love
- Laertes, Polonius’s son
- Fortinbras, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

• There are many ambiguities in Hamlet, the audience is left with uncertainty about several things
– Gertrude’s guilt
– Hamlet’s love for Ophelia
– Is Hamlet’s revenge morally justified?
– and more…
• Shakespeare may have intended for these ambiguities to enhance the theme of uncertainty

• 1948 – British film directed by and starred Laurence Olivier (Academy
Awards for Best Picture and Best Actor)
• 1964 – Russian adaptation, most soliloquies cut out – Hamlet is delayed not by inner conflict but instead by circumstances
• 1969 – First color film directed by Tony
Richardson; made with a small budget and minimal set; marketed to teenage audiences as a tragic love story (hoping to gain success after the 1968 Zeffirelli version of Romeo and Juliet)

1990 –directed by Zeffirelli (same guy who did R
& J), starred Mel Gibson, Glenn Close, and
Helena Bonham Carter; fits into the “action” genre; highlights the sexual nature of the relationship between Hamlet and his mother
1996 - directed by and starred Kenneth Branagh
Full text (runs about 4 hours); also features
Billy Crystal, Robin Williams, and Kate Winslet; vibrant colors, extensive Victorian costumes and furnishings
2000 – Starring Ethan Hawke, Hamlet is a film student and the “kingdom” is the Denmark
Corporation and instead of becoming King,
Hamlet’s uncle becomes CEO; ghost appears on closed circuit television; also stars Julia
Stiles, Liev Schreiber, and Bill Murray

• Act I – Scene I
– Barnardo
– Francisco
– Horatio
– Marcellus
We will read in class on Tuesday. Acts I and II should be read, in full, by
Monday, November 30 th .
• Act I – Scene II
– King (Claudius)
– Queen (Gertrude)
– Cornelius/Voltemand
– Laertes
– Polonius
– Hamlet
– Horatio
– Marcellus

• Act I by Tuesday, November 24 th
• Act II by Monday, November 30 th
• Act III by Friday, December 4 th
• Act IV by Tuesday, December 8 th
• Act V by Friday, December 11 th