Due Friday

1. Do a level one re-read of the remainder of Act II.

2. None required.


3. Do a level three analysis of Hamlet's speech, Act II, scene 2, line 555, "Oh what a rogue and peasant slave am I..." Please mark the text, and be prepared to turn in.

Now I am alone.
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,
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,
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
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,
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;
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.

Due Thursday

1. Do a level one review of plot events of Act II, scenes 1 and 2, stopping before the players enter.(around line 380).

2. Do a level two reading (think carefully about literal and analytical ideas) of Act II, scene 2, Hamlet's speech beginning with "I will tell you what, so shall my anticipation prevent your discovery", but focusing on the "Oh what a piece of work is man..." portion.

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
you seem to say so.

3. No marking the text required.

Due Tuesday and Beyond

Hamlet Review Information:

Perform a level three (marking the text) on the "Too too solid speech." Text below.

Perform a level one review of the remainder of Act I.

HAMLET
O, that this too too solid flesh would melt
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on't! ah fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
But two months dead: nay, not so much, not two:
So excellent a king; that was, to this,
Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
Must I remember? why, she would hang on him,
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on: and yet, within a month--
Let me not think on't--Frailty, thy name is woman!--
A little month, or ere those shoes were old
With which she follow'd my poor father's body,
Like Niobe, all tears:--why she, even she--
O, God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,
Would have mourn'd longer--married with my uncle,
My father's brother, but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules: within a month:
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
She married. O, most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
It is not nor it cannot come to good:
But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue.

Hamlet Research Paper Information

(Due Tuesday, January 21st)

PLEASE SUBMIT A PAPER COPY ALONG WITH AN ELECTRONIC COPY ON TURNITIN

You must find and read 1 critical essay written about Hamlet. Your essays can come from the internet, a literary journal, the back of a copy the play (if included) or the introduction to the play if long enough. JSTOR would be an excellent resource for this assignment; please ask if you need login or other JSTOR information.

If you choose to use an essay from the internet, it must be from a reputable, academic source. This excludes essays from Sparknotes, Echeats, Purple monkey, Debbie’s Book Report Grade 8, etc.

Then you must write a 2-3 page evaluation of the essay. Your evaluation should include a summary of the thesis/argument of the essay you read (use quotations to refer to this) as well as your personal reaction to the validity of these points. Your summary portion should not exceed half of your total length. Please be sure to maintain a 3rd person formal voice even though you are expressing your opinion. You will also want to make sure you support your reaction/opinion with quotations from Hamlet.

Pay special attention to the language used by the authors of the critical essay. This is a chance for you to experience the language of literary analysis and learn from it stylistically. It is also a chance for you to research an aspect of Hamlet that you find personally interesting: gender relationships, minor characters, etc.

Please use MLA formatting and include a works cited. (You will not, however, lose any points for formatting errors). Hallelujah!

Due Tuesday

There are three levels of review that you will be performing, listed in order of most basic to most complicated. Only on the third listed below, do you have to write anything down, although you are welcome to mark close text reading for those speeches listed under step 2 below if you want to go the extra mile.

1. Review plot events for scenes 1 and 2 of Act I.

2. Review the following speeches, practicing our close text (literal summary and analysis techniques) in your head. You do not need to write anything down, but can if you choose. (This is similar to what we practiced on the Henry V speech before break.)

- Act I, scene ii beginning speech by King Claudius: "Though yet our memory..."
- Act I, scene ii, speech by Hamlet: "Seems madam? Nay, it is"

3. Mark close text observations on the following speech, using your left margin for literal summary and your right for analytical analysis and associative thinking. If you are using an etext (or don't want to write in your book), I'll include the passage below so you can copy and paste and print it for ease of marking the text.

- Act I, scene ii, speech by King Claudius: "'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature Hamlet..."

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.

Kane Essay Information

Both essay assignments should be submitted to Turnitin by 11:59 pm on December 19th. You will have some reading due during the week next week, so make sure you make progress on the essays this weekend.

Kane Device Analysis

Please write a 2 page minimum (typed, double-spaced) reflection paper on the use of a minimum of 3 film techniques in Citizen Kane. Please describe the specific effect and analyze how its use contributes to the meaning of the film. There are no structural requirements for the paper, but the paper should be written in formal voice.


Kane Character Analysis Paper


You are writing a character analysis paper focusing on Charles Foster Kane. Again, it will be in formal voice, 2 pages, double-spaced, but no structure requirements. Consider discussing Kane's influences, motivations, desires, fears, relationships with others, etc. Do your best to use some quotations from the movie

Due Monday

Please complete a "prose prospectus" for the passage from "Middlemarch" and the passage from "Belinda". The frame for a prospectus is below, followed by an example I typed up from "The Other Paris."

Prose Prospectus Frame:

Title and Author of Passage:

Approximate Era of Passage: Victorian, Modern, Contemporary, etc

New Vocabulary: Write down fancy new words from the passage and their definitions.

Restatement of Prompt as Question:

Devices you would mention in your essay: Remember, these do not have to be full paragraph topics, but just an appropriate literary word that you could use in your essay.

Answer to the prompt question as thesis/poa: This is your actual thesis statement.

Key Quotations for support You may either retype these quotations OR turn in a highlighted, underlined, copy of the text indicating which quotations you would use.

One Analytical Unit: This should be an excerpt from your essay that uses a targeted quotation(s) and says important stuff about it. Try to sound insightful, fancy, and make good inferences.

My Example:

Title and Author of Passage: “The Other Paris” by Mavis Gallant

Approximate Era of Passage: Modern

New Vocabulary: none (it was a pretty simple passage.)

Restatement of Prompt as Question: What is the specific social commentary?

Devices you would mention in your essay: Characterization, Narrative Voice, imagary Irony, Satire, Diction, point of view.

Answer to the prompt question as thesis/poa: Gallant presents a scathing criticism of passionless and depersonalized expectations of marriage based on social convenience and money through her use of characterization and ironic narrative voice.

Key Quotations for support: I think you know what I want for this.

One Analytical Unit: Gallant begins with an ironic contrast between the idyllic imagery of Carol’s imagined proposal, replete with “moonlight”, “barrows of violets”, “misty backgrounds”, and that most iconic of Romantic images the “Eifel tower”, juxtaposed with the prosaic reality of being proposed to at lunch over a “tuna-fish salad.” The disparity of these two images, strengthened by the olfactory unpleasantness of a smelly and boring lunch option, creates from the beginning an air of ridiculousness the permeates the passage, letting the reader know that Carol and Howard’s relationship is subject of her critical ridicule.

Due Thursday

"A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" (362)

Text available here if needed.

(y en espanol)