Due Monday and Tues/Wed

Please read Act I of Hamlet for Monday and Tues/Wed. Please complete a "marking the text" activity for Claudius' speech in Act I scene ii printed below. We will most likely make it to the Claudius speech on Monday, so I'd recommend the following allocation of your time over the weekend:


-Read Act I up through the Claudius speech over the weekend.
-Print and complete the marking the text for the Claudius speech over the weekend.
-Finish reading the rest of Act I over the weekend (if you have time) or for class on Tuesday/Wednesday if you don't have enough time.

If we don't make it to Claudius' speech on Monday, at least it will already be done for the next class!

Marking the text instructions:

Please perform an analysis (mark the text with devices and "how" insights") for the following speech. As you are reading them, keep in mind the purpose of the speeches and what they reveal about the speakers and their attitudes towards their subject matter.

I recommend copying and pasting my text into a document of your choice and formatting it in such a way that you have margins sufficient for your marking the text techniques.


Act I, scene ii, approx line 94

KING CLAUDIUS
'Tis sweet and co
mmendable in your nature, Hamlet,
To give these mourning duties to your father:
But, you must know, your father lost a father;
That father lost, lost his, and the survivor bound
In filial obligation for some term
To do obsequious sorrow: but to persever
In obstinate condolement is a course
Of impious stubbornness; 'tis unmanly grief;
It shows a will most incorrect to heaven,
A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,
An understanding simple and unschool'd:
For what we know must be and is as common
As any the most vulgar thing to sense,
Why should we in our peevish opposition
Take it to heart? Fie! 'tis a fault to heaven,
A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
To reason most absurd: whose common theme
Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,
From the first corse till he that died to-day,
'This must be so.' We pray you, throw to earth
This unprevailing woe, and think of us
As of a father: for let the world take note,
You are the most immediate to our throne;
And with no less nobility of love
Than that which dearest father bears his son,
Do I impart toward you. For your intent
In going back to school in Wittenberg,
It is most retrograde to our desire:
And we beseech you, bend you to remain
Here, in the cheer and comfort of our eye,
Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.