Fitzbacon!

[taimatsu]

Hey, Shakespeare buffs - tell me about Hamlet! Specifically, I have a seminar Wednesday morning focussing on soliloquies and other especially notable bits (everyone should read, I quote, "the soliloquy at the end of Act 2.2 'O what a rogue and peasant slave am I' and also the famous grave diggers scene, 5.1"). We did Hamlet two Bardcamps ago so I have a basic idea of it but VERY LITTLE MORE and I know you people have Big Thoughts on the subject.

If nothing else, tell me - what do you think is the coolest/most interesting thing about this play? A section/speech/scene, a theme, an idea or critical theory, anything. I will do some secondary reading but not much in time.

Comments

[mirrorshard.livejournal.com]

It's all about the recursive nature of self-examination and how we create ourselves, sometimes with undesired results. This brings in the relationship-with-father thing, creating ourselves in the image of or in opposition to our parents - cf. Hamlet and Claudius, Hamlet and his blood father, Fortinbras and his father, Polonius's children - and Shakespeare's own Hamnet who died in 1596.

It's got more soliloquies in it than most plays, which some critics see as Hamlet driving himself mad, insisting on existing in his own tiny nutshell.

I'm very fond of the gravediggers' scene, but that's partly because it's one of the best Armin/Burbage doublehanders.

The best secondary reading you could possibly do is Stoppard.