Shakespeare’s
Life and Plays
The tragedy of
Hamlet
Teaching
Seriousness
Competence
Method
Explain
Reward
Care
Stronger / Weaker
classes
or
groups in a class
Not mass
but
individualised teaching
addressed to
varied
competences
sensitiveness
motivation
Unit plan
Multimedia Presentation
Power Point - Textbook – Webpages - CD Audio - video DVD
Reading :
Hamlet’s monologue
What a piece of work is man
Listening :
The Bard of Avon ( A radio programme on CD audio)
Video
1990 Zeffirelli’s film Amleto ( the complete Italian version )
Hamlet ( passages from the English version :
:
“To be or not to be” monologue
“ What a piece of work is man” )
Language
Grammar : modals in the past ( may –might )
Vocabulary : crime – revenge - doubt – mystery – acting etc.
Functions : hypothesis in the past
Warming up
Set the background information

Reading of chapters /passages / quotations from two books :
I segreti di Londra , by Corrado Augias
Storia della letteratura Inglese ,

by G. T. di Lampedusa
Homework research task
by surfing the Internet on given websites :
www. shakespeare-globe.org
www. williamshakespeares. com
www. sparknotes.com
Biography
William Shakespeare : The Bard of Avon
A mysterious life
Listening
Listen to the radio programme The Bard of Avon about
Shakespeare’s biography and fill in the missing information.
You are required to write a short sentence in each box.
You will hear the recording twice. Use the first listening to fill in
the easiest sentences and the second to complete the task .
Language ( Vocabulary – Grammar )
Now read the completed text and underline all the
words / phrases /sentences expressing uncertainty and mystery .
Plays
First Folio – The first collected edition of Shakespeare’s plays - 1623
Mr W. Shakespeare’s Comedies Histories § Tragedies, Published according
to the true Original Copies , edited by Heminges and Condell
•
•
38 plays
no chronological order
but
classification into three genres :
- comedies
- historical plays
- tragedies
First Folio displayed in Hong Kong
Dating
of the plays
Approximate dates have subsequently been given to the 38 plays
based on :
Internal evidence
( references to contemporary events in the play )
External evidence
( references to the play on official contemporary documents )
Stylistic evidence
( quality of style, plot, characterization and metre used in the play )
- Malone ( 1821 ) – Furnivall ( 1877 ) - E.K. Chambers ( 1930 )
The most authoritative attempts at dating Shakespeare’s plays
The Four Periods
The division into four periods is usually based on Chamber’s table
Years
Histories
Comedies/Romances
Tragedies
1590
Apprenticeship
Richard III
1595
1596
History plays
/
Love comedies
1599
Richard II
King John
Henry IV
Romeo and Juliet
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
The Merchant of Venice
Much Ado about Nothing
1600
Great Tragedies
and
Dark comedies
Julius Caesar
The Merry Wives of Windsor
Troilus and Cressida
All’s Well that Ends Well
Measure for Measure
1608
1609
The romances
1613
The Winter’s Tale
The Tempest
Hamlet
Othello
King Lear
Macbeth
Antony and Cleopatra
Hamlet
Prince of Denmark
1601
Shakespeare’s most celebrated play
The
Popularity
of this tragedy concerning the
miserable, young prince of Denmark
has been constant throughout the centuries
and its
success
has been renewed in
a great number of film versions
Hamlet
Characters
A couple of young lovers
and their families
•
Hamlet
Family Ties and Political Hierarchy
Hamlet
Prince of Denmark
The ghost
of
the dead
father
Gertrude,
Hamlet’s mother
The Queen
Claudius.
Humlet’s uncle
The present king
Ophelia
Polonius,
Ophelia’s father
the king’s councellor
Laertes,
Ophelia’s brother
Hamlet
Plot
The story of the Prince of Denmark whose father, the
lawful king, was murdered by Hamlet’s uncle Claudius,
who quickly marries the Queen in order to take the
throne.
Prompted by the ghost of his father , Hamlet embarks
on the task of avenging the murder. He pretends to be
mad in order to carry out his plans more freely.
Soon the protagonist’s inability to act clashes with the
demands of restoring a lawful succession to the throne.
Hamlet
The Five Acts
ACT I
- Qeen Gertrude and her brother-in-law Claudius marry after the king’s death
- The Ghost of the dead king appears and tells Hamlet he has been murdered
- He asks Hamlet to take revenge
ACT II
- Hamlet pretends to be mad and rejects Ophelia’s love
- He asks a troupe of actors to perform “ The Murder of Gonzago “
ACT III
- The play is presented . The king rises and rushes away
ACT IV
-
ACT V
- The duel follows
- Hamlet kills Polonius
- The king decides to get rid of Hamlet and sends him to England
-
Ophelia goes mad and drowns herself
Hamlet returns from England
The king drives Laertes to a duel with Hamlet
- Hamlet is urged to drink poisoned wine but he does not
- The queen drinks it and dies
-
Laertes wounds Hamlet with the poisoned tip of his sword . . . . . . . .
- . . . . . . . Everybody dies
- Fortinbras takes possession of the kingdom after giving military honours to Hamlet
Hamlet,
the angry young man
Angriness – restlessness – generational clashes – doubt
Hamlet embodies
the spirit of restlessness
of an age of transition .
On the one hand he seems to
threaten the certainties
upon which the Elisabethan age was built,
but on the other is unable to provide any new context of reference.
Accordingly, Hamlet’s character is both
scornful and nostalgic
of the values that nourished the old world order.
Hamlet
Unforgettable lines
Hamlet










Universal themes
Life and death
Thirst for power
Corruption
Misogyny
Youth
Appearance vs Reality
(Dis)Loyal Friendship
Parental relationships
Revenge
Superstition vs Intellect
Mel Gibson
as Hamlet
in Zeffirelli’s film
Showing the film - 150 min ( Italian Version )
Starring: Mel Gibson
Glenn Close
Alan Bates
Helena Bonan-Carter
as Hamlet
as Gertrude
as Claudius
as Ophelia
Hamlet’s
Memorable Speeches
From the English version of the film
“ To Be, or not to Be “ About 10 min
“ What a piece of work is man “ about 10 min
To Be , or not to Be
Reading - Translation – Paraphrasis
Analysis of Language and Imagery
ENGLISH
Statement of alternative
To be, or not to be, that is the question :
Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind ………..
…………………………………………….
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
Death as a solution
……………….. To die , to sleep
No more ; and by a sleep to say we end
…………………………
A turn in Hamlet’s thoughts
To sleep, perchance to dream – ay, there’s the rub :
Reasons for bearing adversity
For , in that sleep of death what dreams may come
………………………………………………………..
ITALIAN
What a piece of work is man
A Freudian description of Depression
HAMLET : I have of late - but wherefore I know not – lost all my mirth , foregone all
custom of exercise ; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this
goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory ; this most excellent
canopy, the air , look you , this brave o’erhanging firmament ,this majestical fretted
with golden fire, why, it appeareth no other thing to me that a foul and pestilent
congregation of vapours . What a piece of work is man ! How noble in reason! How
infinite in faculty ; in form and moving how expressand admirable ; in action how like
an angel ; in apprehension how like a god ! the beauty of the world, the paragon of
animals ! And yet , to me , what is this quintessence of dust ? Man delights not
me; no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.
ROSENCRANTZ : My lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts.
HAMLET : Why did you laugh then when I said “man delights not me” ?
Test
Literary competence
Literary analysis
Language
Text

PART 1 - Multiple choice
( Shakespeare’s life and plays )

PART 2 - Cloze text
( plot of Hamlet )

PART 3 - Open questions / Short essay
on
- Hamlet’s monologue
- Hamlet’s vision of life
- Hamlet’s character