Hamlet. Hamlet. And more Hamlet! We have spent a ton of time with this play this past month, yet I still feel like we haven't even made a dent in Shakespeare's Hamlet. Most of the time (my annotations included) has been spent just trying to decode what the characters are saying. The "deeper meaning behind it all" simply goes over my head, even more so than usual. One thing that I've noticed is just how many ways there are to interpret the play. Does Ophelia have an agenda, or is she innocent? Does Hamlet actually love Ophelia? Speaking of Hamlet, is he gay? What about that bromance Horatio and Hamlet have going on (I mean, Horatio wants to commit suicide in the end when Hamlet dies)? Did Gertrude and King Hamlet really have a great relationship? And, last but not least, how insane is Hamlet? GAH. So many ways to interpret this play, and most (if not all) of them are correct. I haven't made up my mind about most of these--except I don't think Hamlet is gay. That's just...no.
It was actually helpful and interesting to see the movie versions of Hamlet. I thought the first one was good because it seemed to be more in the middle interpretation-wise. However, I enjoyed the second one a lot more. Ms. Holmes thinks that's because the scenery and people are prettier, but I really just thought the acting was a lot more fun. Plus, I liked that the director played around with interpreting the play and put his own spin on it! It made me react and think about whether I agreed with him or not. I must say, my favorite scene was when Ophelia was handing out flowers, but the director made the flowers imaginary...I thought that was really well-done.
Anyway, I suppose we'll be wrapping up Hamlet soon and then preparing to die on the terms-test final. Awesome.
Hi Haley!
ReplyDeleteI think your posts are really fun to read! Your voice really comes through and it makes it entertaining. I completely agree with you on the double meanings in Hamlet being a struggle to annotate on. It's difficult to find the second meaning behind the lines. The article about Hamlet in Africa helped me think about how literature can be interpreted in many ways. I also liked the second movie a lot more. It was thought evoking and the acting was well done. The character casting was also the way I had pictured it as I was reading, so it added a nice touch to the overall viewing.
I think you did a great job and covered Hamlet and how it affected you. Maybe you could talk about the forum posts or how learning about hamlet has affected you outside of class.
I agree with Joyce, your posts are very enjoyable to read! I really liked how you elaborated on the stuff we did with Hamlet and your opinions on it instead of just saying, "we worked on Hamlet." I also had troubles with the "deeper meaning" of Hamlet because it was so hard to understand the language and what even was going on.
ReplyDeleteDo you think watching all the different movies helped you with the "deeper meaning" stuff? Personally, I feel that we learned a lot about the different interpretations and the ambiguity of the whole play, but we didn't really cover a lot about the themes, motifs, etc.