Objectives

Background 

Reading and Watching the Play

Act-by-Act Notes, Questions, Hints on the Play 

The Movie (Zeffirelli-Gibson, 1989)

Watching the Movie

• general preview

• Hamlet vs. Ophelia

• "To be or not to be..."

• Hamlet vs. Gertrude

• notes from "The Making of Hamlet"

Other Productions of and about Hamlet

Essay and Study Guide Questions

1. Hamlet's Free Will

2. The Women
              sample essay

3. Polonius' Death

4. Hamlet vs. Oedipus

5. Staging

Essays on the play

• Camera Work

Links to other relevant Websites

Assessment

Ian Delaney's "A Short Course on Shakespeare's Hamlet" or here or here.

A guided essay assignment on Hamlet's personality

A basic chronology of Shakespeare's life

Harry Rusche's Shakespeare Illustrated

The making of Kenneth Branagh's film of Hamlet--especially comments by Russell Jackson, text consultant, about Hamlet's situation, soliloquys, and language, plus Branagh's observation on Polonius as politician.

(For details on these links and for more, sometimes irreverent sites, visit the Links page at the end of this module.)

known Litonline syllabi