Hamlet

• A Pyrrhic victory (/ˈpɪrɪk/PIRR-ik) is a victory that inflicts such a devastating toll on the victor that it is tantamount to defeat. Someone who wins a Pyrrhic victory has been victorious in some way, though the heavy toll negates a true sense of achievement or profit.

“ 'Twas Aeneas' tale to Dido and thereabout of it, especially where he speaks of Priam’s slaughter. If it live in your memory, begin at this line—Let me see, let me see—

The rugged Pyrrhus, like th' Hyrcanian beast—It is not so. It begins with Pyrrhus—The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms,Black as his purpose, did the night resembleWhen he lay couchèd in the ominous horse,Hath now this dread and black complexion smearedWith heraldry more dismal.”

Hamlet

• Shakespeare’s most complex, ambiguous and intriguing play is an excellent choice for a critical study unit.

• The inherent elasticity of English means that there is ample evidence of a range of concepts pertaining to the human experience in the play.

• Which necessitates the need for the play to become part of your DNA.

The play’s the thing…

• This seems self-evident, but many students loose sight of the form of the text.

• This is a PLAY – your awareness of this must emerge through your essay. Even if you’re reading the play as a static text, try to imagine how this would be performed.

• If your teacher hasn’t organised an excursion, try to do so yourself – the importance of this cannot be underestimated.

Who is familiar with the play?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=My14mZa-eq8

The RubricThis module requires students to engage with and develop an

informed personal understanding of their prescribed text.

Through critical analysis and evaluation of its language, content and construction, students will develop an appreciation of the textual integrity of their prescribed text. They refine their own understanding and interpretations of the prescribed text and critically consider these in light of the perspectives of others.

Students explore how context influences their own and others’ responses to the text and how the text has been received and valued.

What is textual integrity?What gives structures

architectural integrity?

Reflect or respond to the Zeitgeist

Be made of good materials Structurally sound Aesthetically or emotionally

pleasing Endurance/relevance Iconic/ reflective of a particular

identity Unique Unity and cohesion in design

These attributes are what gives art and literature a sense of integrity

Textual IntegrityTextual integrity – enduring, well-made and of good things,

suit the purpose of the time and have continuing relevance today, demonstrate considerable skills, people must be drawn to it and admire it.

Shakespeare can convey credibly and convincingly that transformation of the individual.

Shakespeare creates human portraits. There are complex and layered interpersonal relationships. We see what it is to be in your rawest

form. Hamlet is one of literature’s most remarkable characters. His troubled mind reflects humanist introspection and self-awareness

that still resonates with contemporary audiences.

Elizabethan Context (pages 4 -10)

• Know your context – your should pepper it through your essay to lift your analysis and demonstrate how Shakespeare reflects and responds to his Zeitgeist.

• NOT a history essay and DON’T fact-dump

• There are extensive notes in your booklet but this is just the starting point. There are ample documentaries on YouTube and Netflix which allow you to get your head around some of the finer points of context:

– Shakespeare and Us, Simon Schama– She Wolves (Netflix)– The Tudors (TV series - a little racy)– BBC documentary on Shakespeare– Elizabeth and Elizabeth, The Golden Age (films)

Context• Shakespeare’s oeuvre (body of work) and how does Hamlet

jam off the ideas in Macbeth and with the character of Falstaff

• Acute fear of destabilisation after the death of Elizabeth I – “madness in great ones must not unwatched go…”

• Era of political public representations

• The power of the WORD (rather than the image) in Protestant Reformation England

Context

• You must have a sense of the social milieu• Conceptually, Humanism is a Renaissance movement,

thinking and mindset. Elizabeth I embraced Humanism, the value of education and rhetoric as such, literacy levels began to rise (although many are still illiterate).

• Rising secularism.

• Theatre was not elitist. Deemed as inferior and targeted at the riff-raff, although Elizabeth I frequently attended.

What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving, how express and admirable in action, how like an angel in apprehension, how like a god: the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals.

FormHistory of Drama – Greek, Roman, Medieval, Renaissance, Neo-classical.

Tragedy – dramatic conventions established by Aristotle -The Poetics• Tragedy should trigger a sense of pity and a cathartic response from the

audience. • Human suffering and decline and death of a protagonist who was of high

status always features. • Tragic downfall due to character flaws. You must explore what the terms

mean if you use them – hubris, peripeteia, hamartia, anagorisis and so forth

• Their innate integrity, stoicism and heroic stature prompts audience empathy.

• Roman tragedy is far bloodier than the Greek. Tragedy evolved over time and during the Elizabethan era, ‘blood tragedy’ became popular as the recontextualise the form.

FormTragic Hero – born into nobility, responsible to own fate, faces and accept death with honour, doomed by a fatal flaw,

audience moved by pity for his fate, exhibits admirable qualities, doomed to make a serious error in judgement, failing from esteem and honourable status.

Elizabethan Theatre• A tragic hero has the potential for greatness but is doomed to fail. Trapped in a situation where he cannot win. A

moral victory is won, however by their ability to perceive their own complicity and courageously accepting their fate. Typically referred to history, rather than myth (like in the Greek context). Utilising the five act Senecanconvention, in additional to the use of blood and lust (see notes on Seneca pg 11).

Structure• Exposition – characters, setting and circumstance• Rising Action – introduction of conflicts• Climax – turning point (In a tragedy, things normally go from bad to worse for the tragic hero)• Falling Action – conflict resolution begins to fall into place. Result of climax (opposing forces gain dominance)• Denouement/Catastrophe – main conflicts resolved (redemptive suffering and moral victory achieved despite the

death of the tragic hero)

• A Shakespearean BLOOD tragedy, not merely an Elizabethan tragedy – 8 bodies.

FormHave a blend of dramatic language techniques – aside, monologue,

duologue, dialogue, exchanges and soliloquies. Consider the purpose of each.

• ASIDE: The audience is empowered with knowledge creating dramatic irony

• MONOLOGUE: The level of disclosure is limited in public speeches. Persuasive techniques of logos, ethos and pathos are included

• SOLILOQUY: Predicate a change in thinking.They clarify inner turmoil and conflict

Shh!

Values

Value

Concept

Theme

Some key concepts – pgs 25-30

Revenge and Justice

• Three separate revenge plots are developed where a son attempts to avenge the death of a father - why?

• We are forced to compare and contrast and ‘rank’ them – the academic and sensitive intellectual, the morally-dubious cad and the quintessential warrior prince.

• In typical Elizabethan Revenge Tragedies, the hero’s fate had been thrust upon him. Shakespeare adds moral quandary to such a scenario by having a highly intelligent, sensitive and moral avenger; traits and virtues that are liabilities within an immoral and corrupt society. To extract retribution, he must adopt the typical methods of the avenger: assumed madness, duplicity and ruthlessness.

Verisimilitude – you must state its purpose – how it informs the audience and concepts• The term “apparition” and “seems” are used repetitively as are the ambiguities of the term “seem”, while

contradictions make nothing certain.

• Bonds of kinship, love and loyalty are violated by incest, betrayal, murder and no one can be confided in or trusted. Hamlet’s sense of integrity is outraged by the court’s hypocrisy, deceit and servile passivity

• The ghost’s demand for vengeance however challenges his values making him a dissembler, who must lie and manipulate to arrive at the truth.

• Hamlet’s adversaries add tension, mystery and conflict to the play.

Some key concepts - pgs 25-30

Corruption and Duplicity• Words cannot be trusted and can be used to distort the truth, manipulate other people, and serve

as tools for power.

• Claudius is a complex figure, uncle, lecher, skilled rhetorician, shrewd politician who can manipulate words to enhance his position.

• The venality of the court is seen in their complicit election of Claudius (“popped between th’elections and my hopes”).

Madness• Feigned and real madness collide in the nunnery scene.

• Ophelia’s genuine madness parallels Hamlet’s feigned madness.

Death and Mortality• Mortality is omnipresent.

• Mortality is coupled with a profound consciousness of loss and corruption. Likens it to degradation and depravity. The nexus of life and death. See the joking repartee with the Gravedigger. Many bodies inhabit the same grave – nothing is sacred in death.

Textual Analysis

• Three key areas – content, language and structure

• How it is structured and how Shakespeare represents the ideas.

• The complexity of characterisation and plot (and resultant subplots and sub-characterisation) is what makes Shakespeare remarkable.

Textual Analysis• Disease Imagery• Botantical Imagery• Amplification of the notion of the ‘Act’• Existential symbolism – skulls, death and darkness• Stichomythia• Irony• Metatheatre– the mouse trap ‘The Murder of Gonzago’

• Understanding delay and NOT procrastination

Other stylistic elements that pertain to language features are detailed on pg 83 -86

Dig deeper!

• Shakespeare’s verse yields a depth and breadth of meaning if you continue to deconstruct the language, the allusions and the connotations.

• Spend time thinking over the excerpts you wish to utilise .

• Undertake additional research to appreciate other inflections of meaning.

Act 3, Scene II, Lines 350 - 360 Tis now the very witching time of night, When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes outContagion to this world: now could I drink hot blood And do such bitter business as the day Would quake to look on. Soft! now to my mother. O heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom:Let me be cruel, not unnatural: I will speak daggers to her, but use none; My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites; How in my words soever she be shent, To give them seals never, my soul, consent!

CharacterGERTRUDE

• Gertrude is alive, tangible, the last bastion of parentage (symbolic of the dissolution of family) but Hamlet is effectively orphaned.

• Gertrude is an accomplice in the usurpation and thus a usurper herself. She is culpable in his disinheritance. She too, has wooed the court in their election of Claudius. The populace are similarly complicit in the act, in their hasty election in spite of the death of their beloved Hamlet (Snr and Jr)

• Her lack of mourning is perfidious• She did not want a diminution of her power• She has dramatic potency and she and Hamlet duel verbally, but her

weapons aren’t loaded

CharacterOPHELIA

• Ophelia is exceedingly vulnerable, but instead of strengthening through unity, Hamlet cannot trust her because of her family connections. She is an isolated creature. This compounds Hamlet’s isolation

• Ophelia represents the dispossession and lack of franchise that is imbued in the contextual milieu; she merely acquiesces to everything. She is also young and sans mother

• Hamlet offers her some “tokens”, but he is as limited as she in choice. Ophelia could be a paramour, but not a wife. Their relationship is simply not substantial. Her father is merely a politician and Hamlet is mostly at Wittenberg – implausible and anachronistic

• Love is thwarted, a trope that appears in most Shakespearean plays• Hamlet associates her with betrayal when he keens being overheard in her quarters. She is privy

and complicit in the intrigue of the court.• Dramatically, she serves the function of understanding how Hamlet has been perceived and

continues to be perceived by the Danish, “What a noble mind is here o’erthrown”• Shakespeare shows us Hamlet’s dilemma through Ophelia’s dilemma• The madness is calculated and a guise. But it allows him the freedom of expression, hitherto

impermissible by a Prince of the Danish court.• The audience is empowered with knowledge creating dramatic irony• When others question in play, it predicates that the audience must also question.

An oft overlooked character…Evaluating the role of the ghost – real? trustworthy? intoning a fathers plea, victim of fratricide,

purpose, fate, dramatic impact, viewed with fear and trepidation – could be an agent of the devil, sutures the audience into the question of verisimilitude, crime that is monumental and laden with a biblical gravitas.

The Problem of the Ghost• A supernatural entity and is therefore untrustworthy. He is afforded a lack of veracity by both

Horatio and Hamlet• His presence does suggest a sense of purgative punishment and an overarching universal justice

where atonement is essential.• He died unshriven and had not time to confess due to the nature of his death. Hamlet idealised his

father but he attests to the fact he committed “foul crimes.” • Here, he reiterates moral concerns. Public perception (and Shakespeare’s childhood) was, in fact,

largely Catholic. The Protestant Church had abolished purgatory. • The ghost demands that Hamlet avenge his father’s death, but revenge IS considered a crime. It is

tacitly accepted that revenge is a honourable thing to do. Death represents an “unknown country.”• Antithesis features heavily in Hamlet’s reflection, “be thou a spirit of health, or a goblin damned…

airs from heaven or blasts from hell”• Horatio is very fearful that the ghost is an agent of the devil

Your Response

• How long should my essay be?

Your Response

• CONNECT YOUR THESIS TO A PERSONAL INTERPRETATION CONCEPT – betrayal, adversarial trysts, paterfamilias idealisation, power/powerlessness, surveillance, theatre, morality, intellect, existentialism, verisimilitude, duplicity, besiege, shame

(NOT – Ophelia is badly treated, vengeance, Hamlet’s ‘madness’ or delay, feminism/misogyny, Oedipal stuff. Don’t go out on too narrow a limb and hope its strong enough to hold you.)

Your Response

• Just answer the question!

• This will likely be the hardest question that you will need to respond to – attack it head on!

• Don’t rely on a pre-prepared essay – be flexible and adaptable in your understanding.

• You may have to juggle three concepts (see pgs 61 - 62)

Your Response

• Try not to do the ‘to be or not be’ soliloquy – this soliloquy conveys an anti-humanist message (may contradict your argument). His disgust, pessimism and avenger’s role is grimly exacerbated “for I must hold my tongue.” Hamlet is made mute.

• Ensure you reference the FIRST and LAST soliloquy. See how they are driven by HONOUR and SHAME

• This is a play about the transformative nature of experience. Hamlet must endure a terrible metamorphoses.

Your Response

• The Five Cs– Context– Content– Concepts– Characterisation– Construction

• Track the play! – Start with the first soliloquy and conclude with the final

soliloquy. But this does not mean running chronologically through the play – track the CONCEPTS.

Critical Material• It is a good idea to research additional critics and

academics to use their understanding of the play to enhance your own

• But – only do this when you have personally engaged in a close reading of the play and developed your own interpretation

• Cite or quote the work of the critics to exemplify an idea

• Your ideas MUST LEAD that of the critics, not vice versa. Use verbs like – concurs, supports, reinforces

HSC Markers FeedbackWilliam Shakespeare, HamletApproaches to the question rested on the way candidates interpreted ‘ideas about truth and deceit’ while also paying attention to

the fact that these ideas were ‘challenging’. Furthermore, this was explored in terms of how Shakespeare used imagery to represent these ideas. Ideas about truth and deceit were interpreted in a variety of thoughtful ways, which included the exploration of truth and deceit in relation to the ghost’s demand, Claudius’ outer calm and inner evil, questions about Gertrude’s fidelity, Hamlet’s existential doubts, the nature of fate and chance, as well as to Hamlet’s final resolution to act.The ‘challenging’ nature of these ideas were explored in terms of the way the play leaves these ideas open to doubt and qualifies Hamlet’s responses in so many ways. Not only are Hamlet and many of the play’s characters challenged by questions over what is truth and what is deceit, but so is the audience in relation to the issues the play raises. Candidatesthen explored how Shakespeare used imagery to represent these ideas.

Candidates showed strength in these areas:• developing and sustaining a thesis that addressed the question and using appropriate textual evidence as support• effectively exploring the link between imagery and the key ideas• showing how a range of imagery, such as images of disease, blood, decay and fate, as well as central dramatic and theatrical

images, such as the ghost, the play within a play, Yorick’s skull and the grave contributed to the central ideas of truth and deceit

• using context to frame the argument about truth and deceit, linking the play to its Renaissance world and the conflict of values at that time

• exploring the breadth of the play.

Candidates need to improve in these areas:• developing a strong personal voice that demonstrates engagement with the text• integrating a sense of the text as a piece of theatrical drama and how this shapes meaning into their analysis• greater discernment of textual evidence, such as not relying on common quotes and examples• using the terms from the question to drive the argument rather than working prepared ideas into the questionhttp://educationstandards.nsw.edu.au/wps/wcm/connect/da55b41d-d2cb-4ea5-b257-543f483122c3/2016-hsc-english-adv-p2.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CACHEID=ROOTWORKSPACE-da55b41d-d2cb-4ea5-b257-543f483122c3-lEWPyTP

Questions?