HWK: For Wednesday...

ANSWER THE FOLLOWING FOUR QUESTIONS:
(Yes, you must watch all the clips - your responses need not be long.)
Bring your answers to class - hand written is fine!






ACT II, Scene II (Part 2)
1. In the scene above, what interesting choices does David Tennant make as Hamlet?




Rosencrantz and Guildenstern - enter at minute 2.

2. (Again, from the scene above) what do you find most interesting in this conversation below?

HAMLET	Denmark's a prison.
ROSENCRANTZ	Then is the world one.
HAMLET	A goodly one; in which there are many confines,
	wards and dungeons, Denmark being one o' the worst.
ROSENCRANTZ	We think not so, my lord.	240
HAMLET	Why, then, 'tis none to you; for there is nothing
	either good or bad, but thinking makes it so: to me
	it is a prison.
ROSENCRANTZ	Why then, your ambition makes it one; 'tis too
	narrow for your mind.
HAMLET	O God, I could be bounded in a nut shell and count
	myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I
	have bad dreams.
GUILDENSTERN	Which dreams indeed are ambition, for the very
	substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.
HAMLET	A dream itself is but a shadow.	251
ROSENCRANTZ	Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a
	quality that it is but a shadow's shadow.
HAMLET	Then are our beggars bodies, and our monarchs and
	outstretched heroes the beggars' shadows. Shall we
	to the court? for, by my fay, I cannot reason.
GUILDENSTERN	We'll wait upon you.
HAMLET	No such matter: I will not sort you with the rest
	of my servants, for, to speak to you like an honest
	man, I am most dreadfully attended. But, in the
	beaten way of friendship, what make you at Elsinore?	261
ROSENCRANTZ	To visit you, my lord; no other occasion.
HAMLET	Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks; but I
	thank you: and sure, dear friends, my thanks are
	too dear a halfpenny. Were you not sent for? Is it
	your own inclining? Is it a free visitation? Come,
	deal justly with me: come, come; nay, speak.
GUILDENSTERN	What should we say, my lord?
HAMLET	Why, any thing, but to the purpose. You were sent
	for; and there is a kind of confession in your looks
	which your modesties have not craft enough to colour:
	I know the good king and queen have sent for you.	272
ROSENCRANTZ	To what end, my lord?
HAMLET	That you must teach me. But let me conjure you, by
	the rights of our fellowship, by the consonancy of
	our youth, by the obligation of our ever-preserved
	love, and by what more dear a better proposer could
	charge you withal, be even and direct with me,
	whether you were sent for, or no?
ROSENCRANTZ	[Aside to GUILDENSTERN] What say you?
HAMLET	[Aside] Nay, then, I have an eye of you.--If you
	love me, hold not off.	281
GUILDENSTERN	My lord, we were sent for.
HAMLET	I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation
	prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to the king
	and queen moult no feather. I have of late--but
	wherefore I know not--lost all my mirth, forgone all
	custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily
	with my disposition that this goodly frame, the
	earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most
	excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave
	o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted
	with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to
	me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.
	What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason!
	how infinite in faculty! 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! And yet, to me,
	what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not
	me: no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling	301
	you seem to say so.

ACT II, Scene II (Part 3)
The Players:


3. In the passage written below (and the one that you just watched above), what has happened that Polonius finds so remarkable?

First Player:
	But if the gods themselves did see here then When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport
	In mincing with his sword her husband's limbs,	490
	The instant burst of clamour that she made,
	Unless things mortal move them not at all,
	Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven,
	And passion in the gods.'
LORD POLONIUS:	Look, whether he has not turned his colour and has
	tears in's eyes. Pray you, no more.

4. Which "O what a rogue and peasant slave am I" Soliloquy do you find most compelling and why?

 A. Kenneth Branaugh

B. Richard Burton
 
C. David Tennant

For online text: http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/hamlet_2_2.html

[Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN]
	Now I am alone.	520
	O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
	Is it not monstrous that this player here,
	But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
	Could force his soul so to his own conceit
	That from her working all his visage wann'd,
	Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect,
	A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
	With forms to his conceit? and all for nothing!
	For Hecuba!
	What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,	530
	That he should weep for her? What would he do,
	Had he the motive and the cue for passion
	That I have? He would drown the stage with tears
	And cleave the general ear with horrid speech,
	Make mad the guilty and appal the free,
	Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed
	The very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I,
	A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak,
	Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,	540
	And can say nothing; no, not for a king,
	Upon whose property and most dear life
	A damn'd defeat was made. Am I a coward?
	Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across?
	Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face?
	Tweaks me by the nose? gives me the lie i' the throat,
	As deep as to the lungs? who does me this?
	Ha!
	'Swounds, I should take it: for it cannot be
	But I am pigeon-liver'd and lack gall	550
	To make oppression bitter, or ere this
	I should have fatted all the region kites
	With this slave's offal: bloody, bawdy villain!
	Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!
	O, vengeance!
	Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,
	That I, the son of a dear father murder'd,
	Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
	Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words,
	And fall a-cursing, like a very drab,	560
	A scullion!
	Fie upon't! foh! About, my brain! I have heard
	That guilty creatures sitting at a play
	Have by the very cunning of the scene
	Been struck so to the soul that presently
	They have proclaim'd their malefactions;
	For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
	With most miraculous organ. I'll have these players
	Play something like the murder of my father
	Before mine uncle: I'll observe his looks;	570
	I'll tent him to the quick: if he but blench,
	I know my course. The spirit that I have seen
	May be the devil: and the devil hath power
	To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps
	Out of my weakness and my melancholy,
	As he is very potent with such spirits,
	Abuses me to damn me: I'll have grounds
	More relative than this: the play 's the thing
	Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.
[Exit]

Next: Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1