Discussion Thread 5 - Hamlet

Remember that in response to Hamlet, you are going to recite - from memory - one speech or part of a speech of at least ten lines from the play in class. You need to choose that speech this week. Your blog entry this week is your chance to do two things: (1) reveal the speech that you have chosen and explain the reason for your choice; and (2) analyze the language of the speech closely in the way that we have been closely reading language from the Thomas and Bishop poems, the passage you chose from Ship Fever, and the speech you chose from Death of a Salesman. Note that you analysis can be brief, but it should discuss the language of the speech well.

Discussion Thread 4 – Hamlet

As we prepare to read Hamlet, consider the position that Hamlet is in as the events of the play start:

- He was happily studying at college when he was called home because his father had been murdered;
- He has reason to suspect his uncle, his late father's brother and now the king, of the murder;
- His mother is "sleeping with the enemy," having hastily married his uncle almost immediately after her late husband's funeral;
- In fact, his relationship with his mother has begun to take on an intimacy that - perhaps - only Oedipus could appreciate;
- As he deals with these issues, the ghost of his father is about to appear and demand that he avenge his murder;
- His highly emotional girlfriend is suddenly clinging to him like a vine, with her annoying father hovering in the background;
- The old friends from school who have recently joined him may be spies for his uncle;
- In the meantime, his nation's traditional enemies, the Norwegians, are trying to use the chaos caused by the murder to take back territory that they recently lost to Denmark.

Given all of these circumstances, put yourself in Hamlet's position. Which of them would bother you the most and why? Kudos, in advance, to those of you who can make a case for an unconventional choice.