Tuesday, May 5, 2015

Hamlet Criticism and Soliloquies

For Wednesday/Thursday....

1. Read the essay by AC Bradley on Hamlet. Open link right. Read Lecture 3. Sections 2-4.

soliloquy — from the Latin solus ("alone") and loqui ("to speak") — is a speech that one gives to oneself. In a play, a character delivering a soliloquy talks to herself — thinking out loud, as it were — so that the audience better understands what is happening to the character internally.

2. You will go through the soliloquies of Hamlet. They are found here: Hamlet Soliloquies 

With each soliloquy, you need to identify the following things:
  • Why does Shakespeare use soliloquies to reveal characters' thoughts?
  • Why is it important that the character is alone on stage during the soliloquy?
  • What is the major theme of this soliloquy
  • What is the tone of this soliloquy
  • What major allusions does Hamlet make? 
  • How does this soliloquy answer what has happened in the plot... or hint at what is to come?
  • Does Shakespeare utilize irony in anyway? 
  • What rhetorical devices are employed? Parallelism? Rhetorical Questions? Repetition? 
  • What do we learn about the character? 

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