Hamlet

Schedule of Passage Analysis

The written homework for your reading of Hamlet will involve careful consideration of significant passages from each assignment.

You will complete three analyses from among the options listed below. You may select no more than one from any single act. You must complete one analysis each week.

Analyses are due on the date listed without exception.

Guidelines for analyses

1. After the MLA heading, double-space and then indicate in bold face the act, scene, and line numbers of the passage: for example, 1.2.76-86.

2. Do a sentence-by-sentence or thought-by-thought paraphrase of the passage in contemporary English that includes appropriate tone words. Remember that paraphrases are typically longer than the original. (Summaries are shorter.) You may use the text notes to guide you. However, if you use another outside source to help you understand, you must include an appropriate MLA bibliographic citation at the end of your analysis as well as appropriate in-text parenthetical citations.

3. In the second part of the paper, write a detailed analysis of the significance of the passage to the scene. In addition, connect the content of the passage to the events of the play thus far.

   Your analysis should explain the context of the passage and may quote from the text as you would in an explication of a poem. You may also quote from other relevant portions of the play to make connections between the passage at hand and the plot thus far.

   Consider and include prior events that are significant to the ideas presented in the passage.

   Your analysis should also show the significance of the passage to the development of the themes, characters, and plot of the play.

   Your analyses should become more extensive as you continue through the play.

4. Use standard MLA format: double spacing, Times New Roman 12-point font, 1" margins all around, and pagination if necessary.

Passages and schedule

Sample analysis

Cedric Erhard
English 11AP, Period 4
Mr. Reed
20 February 2008

1.2.90-121

Claudius has just listened to Gertrude and Hamlet discuss Hamlet’s apparently too-long display of grief. While Gertrude seems genuinely concerned about Hamlet, Claudius seems to think that Hamlet’s appearance of grief is some kind of insult. Claudius tells Hamlet that while it is “commendable” for Hamlet to show such grief for his father, it is “unmanly grief” that “shows a will most incorrect to heaven.” In other words, Hamlet’s continued participation in the act of mourning is effeminate and inappropriate. Claudius does not understand why, since everyone must experience the death of a relative, Hamlet continues to show such dedication to mourning. He says it is “a fault to heaven, a fault against the dead, a fault to nature,” suggesting that Hamlet’s grief is somehow wrong when in fact it could be surmised that Claudius’ lack of grief for his dead brother is wrong. Later, Hamlet notes that Claudius and Gertrude married rather quickly after old Hamlet’s funeral (“the funeral baked meats did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables”). Claudius then entreats Hamlet to look on him as a substitute father, and announces Hamlet’s role as the heir to the throne. Finally, he asks Hamlet to remain in Elsinore.

The audience, along with Hamlet, should immediately be suspicious of Claudius’s motives during this speech. Why is Claudius, not Hamlet, now king of Denmark? Is it not rather convenient that Claudius was able to marry Gertrude so quickly? Why would Claudius rather have Hamlet, who is a potential enemy, nearby, where he could stir up the people against him? Since the speech is given in full view of the court of Elsinore, the audience and Hamlet can interpret it as nothing more than a way for him to “keep up appearances” and develop for the court an image of an honorable, dutiful king.