Marking the Text due Thurs/Fri

Here is the sheet that has marking the text strategies for Shakespearean passages.  These are now back from print, so you will get your very own copy in class next time!

Below you will find the text of the speech you need to mark along with a prompt.  Please mark the text with the prompt and the strategies in mind.  For your convenience, you may want to copy and paste into another document and create some usable borders.  Please make sure that as you write things on your text that you are actually writing your analytical thoughts, not just words like "diction" or "pathos".  Your text markings should convey actual ideas in response to the prompt.

Prompt:  In the following speech, King Claudius ponders the consequences of murdering his brother.  Read the speech carefully and consider how Shakespeare uses devices like tone, diction, imagery, syntax, and structure to reveal the king's conflicted state of mind.

(Act III, scene iii, line 39-)

KING CLAUDIUS

Thanks, dear my lord.
Exit POLONIUS
O, my offence is rank it smells to heaven;
It hath the primal eldest curse upon't,
A brother's murder. Pray can I not,
Though inclination be as sharp as will:
My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent;
And, like a man to double business bound,
I stand in pause where I shall first begin,
And both neglect. What if this cursed hand
Were thicker than itself with brother's blood,
Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens
To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy
But to confront the visage of offence?
And what's in prayer but this two-fold force,
To be forestalled ere we come to fall,
Or pardon'd being down? Then I'll look up;
My fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer
Can serve my turn? 'Forgive me my foul murder'?
That cannot be; since I am still possess'd
Of those effects for which I did the murder,
My crown, mine own ambition and my queen.
May one be pardon'd and retain the offence?
In the corrupted currents of this world
Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice,
And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself
Buys out the law: but 'tis not so above;
There is no shuffling, there the action lies
In his true nature; and we ourselves compell'd,
Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,
To give in evidence. What then? what rests?
Try what repentance can: what can it not?
Yet what can it when one can not repent?
O wretched state! O bosom black as death!
O limed soul, that, struggling to be free,
Art more engaged! Help, angels! Make assay!
Bow, stubborn knees; and, heart with strings of steel,
Be soft as sinews of the newborn babe!
All may be well.
Retires and kneels