As a classroom community, our capacity to generate excitement is deeply affected by our interest in one another, in hearing one another’s voices, in recognizing one another’s presence.
―
Alicia’s video tribute to Hamlet, Twelfth Night, and Othello!
Sir Thomas More
Grant them removed, and grant that this your noise
Hath chid down all the majesty of England;
Imagine that you see the wretched strangers,
Their babies at their backs and their poor luggage,
Plodding tooth ports and costs for transportation,
And that you sit as kings in your desires,
Authority quite silent by your brawl,
And you in ruff of your opinions clothed;
What had you got? I’ll tell you. You had taught
How insolence and strong hand should prevail,
How order should be quelled; and by this pattern
Not one of you should live an aged man,
For other ruffians, as their fancies wrought,
With self same hand, self reasons, and self right,
Would shark on you, and men like ravenous fishes
Would feed on one another.
What country, by the nature of your error,
Should give you harbor? Go you to France or Flanders,
To any German province, to Spain or Portugal,
Nay, any where that not adheres to England,—
Why, you must needs be strangers. Would you be pleased
To find a nation of such barbarous temper,
That, breaking out in hideous violence,
Would not afford you an abode on earth,
Whet their detested knives against your throats,
Spurn you like dogs, and like as if that God
Owed not nor made not you, nor that the claimants
Were not all appropriate to your comforts,
But chartered unto them, what would you think
To be thus used? This is the strangers’ case;
And this your mountanish inhumanity.
Presentations
Day 1: Caitlin built a video connecting Othello’s love story to her own London semester. Hilary mapped Hamlet’s psychological isolation through London locations, everything behind glass. Neha wrote a poem about architecture and oppression, connecting Othello to Westminster’s denial of representation for colonized bodies. Lizzie made a Twelfth Night character playlist with “Call Me Maybe” and “We Are Family” to remind us of the comedy throughout the play. Noelle gave us “grief is love with a heavy coat” for Olivia’s journey from mourning to lightness. Nick used a pendulum metaphor for Hamlet’s psychological state and mapped twelve locations around the Tower of London. Louis made a playlist that convinced us Orsino is… unremarkable, just a rich, spoiled, handsome guy who has fifty-nine speeches to Viola’s hundred and four and leaves no real impression. Casey’s photo essay showed how our emotional registers shift depending on whether we’re at Elf or Evita, Buckingham Palace or a football match. Sophia recited “To be or not to be” in the park and pivoted from our laughter to Hamlet’s vulnerability, taking us inside the exposure instead of watching it from outside.
I pray you in your letters,
When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,
Speak of me as I am. Nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice. Then must you speak
Of one that loved not wisely, but too well;
Of one not easily jealous, but being wrought,
Perplexed in the extreme; of one whose hand,
Like the base Judean, threw a pearl away
Richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdued
eyes,
Albeit unused to the melting mood,
Drops tears as fast as the Arabian trees
Their medicinable gum. Set you down this.
And say besides, that in Aleppo once,
Where a malignant and a turbanned Turk
Beat a Venetian and traduced the state,
I took by th’ throat the circumcisèd dog,
And smote him, thus. (5.2.400–17)
Hamlet Project (Tuesday, December 9)
Execution of Gunpowder Conspirators
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WlMFxZ0Omq-xaaoeTLRTN5LaLlOw8Olg/view
Stellar Midterm Essays:
PSYCHOANALYTIC
- Jonathan: Hamlet’s delay as id/ego/superego conflict in decision-making
- Rohan: Madness and hesitation intersect; performance becomes indistinguishable from actual psychological crisis
- Serena: Real tragedy is epistemological: discovering everyone performs and reality is unknowable
- Erin: Hamlet performs because his genuine grief is policed as “unmanly”; performance becomes both shield and weapon
PSYCHOANALYTIC & FEMINIST
- Nick: Hamlet projects frustration about Gertrude’s sexuality onto Ophelia through displacement
- Shreya: Gertrude strategically protects Hamlet with limited power; deliberately drinks poison as final act of agency
- Tommy: The play demonstrates in subtle ways that Gertrude was complicit
PSYCHOANALYTIC & POSTCOLONIAL
- Neha: Claudius denying Hamlet’s return to Wittenberg is colonial control through withholding education
PSYCHOANALYTIC & PERFORMANCE
- Violet: Performance as grief-processing tool; Hamlet learns acting helps him both immerse in and distance from emotion
FEMINIST
- Hilary: Patriarchal control shapes Ophelia’s madness; even Gertrude perpetuates this by idealizing Ophelia’s death
- Victoria: Obedience undermines love; “I shall obey” phrases get progressively shorter, more mechanical
- Noelle: Gertrude parallels Hamlet; both wait to defy Claudius; does she deliberately drink poison?
- Chloe: Ophelia lacks agency because patriarchal structures give her no room to refuse male authority
- Jessie: Why does Ophelia get sympathy while Gertrude does not?
- Sophia: Gertrude as “boy mom”; women don’t support each other, compete for male validation
FEMINIST & INTERDISCIPLINARY
- Caitlin: Love’s intensity (“ecstasy of love”) destroys Ophelia; Taylor Swift’s song gives Ophelia voice/rescue Shakespeare denies (contemporary music)
- Saanvi: “To be or not to be” is spoke to Ophelia about her oppression
PERFORMANCE STUDIES
- Andrew: Comparing three prayer scene versions (Branagh/Olivier/2025); each emphasizes different aspects of Hamlet’s character
POSTCOLONIAL
- Ben: Hamlet, Ophelia, and Laertes as small colonies controlled by parent-countries, pitted against each other
- Andres: Imperialism rooted in nationalism/honor feeds off violence of power, fuels revenge cycles; Fortinbras’s takeover as imperial conquest
MASCULINITIES STUDIES & INTERDISCIPLINARY
- Aanya: Toxic masculinity and “unmanly grief”; comparing to Fat Ham‘s queer protagonist who resists violence
CULTURAL STUDIES
- Casey: Ghost visibility as moral indicator using religious/cultural ghost traditions; who can/can’t see ghost reveals virtue
- Lizzy: Power and class hierarchy in gravedigger scene; whose bodies get displaced reveals social rank (Marxist/cultural studies)
INTERDISCIPLINARY
- Louis: Hamlet as romantic idealist; comparing “to be or not to be” to Viola’s willow cabin speech from Twelfth Night
- Claire: Is the ghost real? Yes, based on multiple witnesses and probability; possibly magical realism framework
- Alicia: Parent-child attachment creates inability to refuse; Polonius brainwashes Ophelia (neuroscience + psychoanalytic, needs development)
Globe Theatre adventure, Saturday, 6:30 p.m., 90 minutes —this is mandatory unless you have seen Hamlet at the National Theatre (Here’s a link to the tickets: 3.5 hours)
Anyone who wants: we will meet for dinner at 5 p.m.! Meet in front of Globe (email me if you can come)
Sandra Oh and Peter Dinklage in Twelfth Night, PBS, November 14
Twelfth Night at Globe, October 7–25: I’m going Wednesday, October 15 (2 p.m. possible?)
Elsewhere Shakespeare: free Richard III on Sunday, October 12 at The Castle (“we aren’t actors, we are a punk band doing Shakespeare”)
- The anamorphic skull: “By Indirection Find Direction Out” (spying, the play-within-a-play, feigned madness | Viola disguises herself, Olivia hides)
- The two ambassadors: Grief in Identical Positions (Both open with characters in nearly identical positions: paralyzed by loss of a brother/father, but they face opposite directions: one toward tragedy, one toward comedy / Viola and Sebastian literal twins / doubling in Hamlet )
- Lute with a broken string: (“time is out of joint,” “Denmark is a prison,” Sir Toby’s chaos)
The Ambassadors is a double-image that shifts depending on where you stand. From one angle: power, wealth, knowledge, life. From another: death, vanity, futility, discord. Shakespeare wrote Hamlet and Twelfth Night back-to-back, exploring appearances, reality, glamour—but also death, betrayal, and grief… and how we come back from them.
How to cite Shakespeare—important for first project
Emory’s Diverge Magazine: Diverge provides a space for students who feel that traditional, Standard American English (SAE) publications can’t afford their voices. It is in an effort to diversify publications on campus so that everyone’s voice, despite not being SAE or mainstream, can be heard. Diverge publishes multimodal creative works including evidence-based essays, personal reflections, videography, photography, scrapbook pieces, calligraphy, interviews, etc. with a focus on international and multilingual experiences. —Amiee Zhao
Join us! Exec Board application and Submissions
“After Richard,” Elizabeth Taylor said, “the men in my life were just there to hold the coat, to open the door.”
Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton starred in eleven films together, married twice, and divorced twice. She was married eight times to seven men.
Trios: your concepts and questions. I based the midterm prompts on these
- Hamlet’s madness (real vs. feigned)
- The ghost (reality and visibility)
- Gertrude’s complicity, guilt, and motivations
- Ophelia’s madness and death (suicide vs. murder)
- Gender dynamics and treatment of women
- Political themes and the impact of royalty
- Religion’s influence on action
- Character foils (Laertes, Fortinbras, Hamlet)
- Power and its abuse
- Art and performance (the play within the play)
- Grief and mourning
- Polonius’s role and manipulation
- Hamlet’s delay in revenge
- Mother’s love and family dynamics
- Toxic masculinity and patriarchy
- Hypocrisy and projection
- Deception and surveillance
- Language and wordplay
- Soliloquies and internal monologue
Consolidated Questions (Without Repetition)
On Hamlet’s Madness:
- Is Hamlet truly insane, or is he feigning madness? Where is the line between his facade and his true self?
- Is Hamlet exhibiting signs of schizophrenia or other mental health problems?
- To what extent is Hamlet truly mad by Act 4, and how much of his behavior is a calculated performance?
- When does Hamlet’s “Antic Disposition” (fake insanity) blur with real insanity? Has he actually gone crazy after killing Polonius?
- Is Hamlet’s madness a response to his internal psychological conflict versus an external reaction to the corrupt world around him?
- Why is Hamlet the only “mad one” when Claudius says “Madness in great ones must not unwatched go”?
- What level of genuineness is in Hamlet’s madness?
On the Ghost:
- Is the ghost real?
- Why can some characters see the ghost (Horatio, guards, Hamlet) while others cannot (Gertrude)?
- Does patriarchal gender dynamics explain why Gertrude cannot see the ghost?
- Do you think loyalty to King Hamlet determines who can see his ghost?
On Gertrude:
- To what extent is Gertrude innocent or complicit in King Hamlet’s murder?
- Did Gertrude know about Claudius’ assassination of Old Hamlet?
- Does Gertrude marry Claudius for stability, status, companionship, or love?
- Does Gertrude’s silence in the closet scene display guilt, or does she feel oppressed by Hamlet’s behavior?
- How is a mother’s love represented in the final scene when Gertrude drinks the poison?
- To what extent does Gertrude protect Hamlet after the death of Polonius? What’s her loyalty to her son?
- Does Gertrude genuinely try to protect Hamlet and separate him from Claudius, or is her immediate report of Polonius’s death an act of self-preservation?
- How is Gertrude’s portrayal in Hamlet similar to that in Fat Ham?
On Ophelia:
- How does Ophelia’s delusion/madness perpetuate throughout the play?
- Did Gertrude kill Ophelia, or was it legitimate suicide? Did others contribute to her death?
- How does the influence of men ruin Ophelia?
- Do Ophelia’s flower songs prove her madness yet sanity simultaneously?
- In her Valentine’s Day song (Act 4, Scene 5), is Ophelia speaking directly about Hamlet, or voicing a general truth about women’s vulnerability in love?
- Why does Shakespeare have Ophelia express her grief through songs about sex and broken marriage promises rather than directly mourning her father? What does this reveal about pressures on her identity as a woman?
- How does Ophelia’s relationship with Hamlet and the pressures from her family contribute to her psychological breakdown?
- To what extent was Ophelia’s character significant? Did her character have depth or serve as a pawn to further the growth of other characters?
On Hamlet and Ophelia’s Relationship:
- Did Hamlet truly love Ophelia, or was it strictly a performance?
- Was the “to be or not to be” speech intended as a metaphor for Ophelia’s condition or directed towards Ophelia versus towards himself?
- Does Hamlet’s declaration of love at Ophelia’s funeral shed new light on the “get thee to a nunnery” scene?
- Is Hamlet’s treatment of Ophelia a projection of his frustrations with his mother?
On Gender and Power:
- Is it possible that Hamlet feels differently towards women vs. men?
- How does Hamlet abuse his power?
- How does Hamlet’s humiliation of Ophelia represent gendered expectations of the time?
- Do you think Hamlet committed incest with his mother during the closet scene? Does he abuse the women in his life?
- How are the prominent women in the play, Ophelia and Gertrude, constrained by the expectations of a patriarchal court, and how do their responses to grief, loyalty, and duty differ from those of the male characters?
- How does Hamlet question the concept of his “manhood”? To be ‘Hercules’ to not be ‘Hercules’ (using soliloquies 3.1.64-98 and 4.4.35-69 as evidence)?
On Polonius:
- How does Polonius’s nosiness lead to his demise?
- Does Polonius actually care about Ophelia, or is he only using her to further his own means?
On Religion and Politics:
- How do themes of politics shape the environment of Hamlet? How does royalty change the outcome?
- How does religion change Hamlet’s actions? Does religion trap him into certain decisions?
On Claudius:
- Was Claudius genuinely remorseful in the church scene, or only afraid of punishment?
- How does Claudius’s “my offence is rank” soliloquy explore guilt, surveillance, and secrecy?
- Why does the king feel more sympathy for Ophelia over her father’s death but not the same for Hamlet?
On Hamlet’s Actions and Motivations:
- Would Hamlet have gone through with his actions without the ghost’s influence?
- Why did Hamlet wait so long to kill Claudius? What was holding him back?
- Did Hamlet stage the play to test his uncle, or did he already know the truth and want others to realize it?
- Did Hamlet know about the plot Laertes and Claudius orchestrated and simply accept his death?
- What does Hamlet’s struggle between action and inaction say about human behavior?
- What could Hamlet have done to not only avenge his dead father but also escape the fate of a tragedy?
On Grief and Character Comparison:
- Both Hamlet and Laertes grieve for murdered fathers. How do their responses differ (or relate)?
- How does Hamlet’s theme of hesitation in acting against Claudius compare with the decisive actions of other characters, such as Laertes or Fortinbras?
On Character Analysis:
- Who brings Hamlet the most torment throughout the play?
- Who is the villain of the play, or is it Hamlet who torments himself?
- How is Hamlet a hypocrite in dealing with Ophelia’s death and reprimanding Laertes for his grief?
- Is Laertes the real “hero” of the story—the one the audience is supposed to relate to?
On Deception and Themes:
- How do the characters in the play use deception?
- How does the theme of guilt illustrate the effects of conscience on decision-making and moral deterioration?
On Interpretation and Performance:
- How do character foils (Laertes, Fortinbras, and Hamlet) compare?
- What role does art play in Act 4 in relation to Ophelia’s madness?
- Why does Hamlet find out about Ophelia’s death in an uncertain way?
- Is the King leaving in Act 4 up to interpretation in performance?
- Which soliloquy was your favorite and why?
On Language and Sexual References:
- Why are there so many sex work references in the play?
- How has language about speaking with clarity changed from Polonius’s time (“be round with him”) to modern day (“be straight”)?
Johnston Forbes-Robertson to Henry Ainley to Michael Redgrave to Laurence Olivier to Peter O’Toole to Derek Jaobi to Kenneth Branagh to Tom Hiddleston
OpenSource Shakespeare (tool for searching all his works)
| Hamlet (2000). Ethan Hawke |
| Hamlet (1996). Kenneth Branagh |
| Hamlet (1948). Lawrence Olivier |
Hamlet [composed by Brett Dean] (opera) – Medici.tv
Hamlet [directed by Simon Godwin] – Digital Theatre +
Hamlet [directed by Jeffery Kisson] – Digital Theatre +
Hamlet [Directed by Antoni Cimolino] – Digital Theatre +
Hamlet [directed by Robin Lough] – Alexander Street Press
Horatio’s Hamlet [directed by Jay Woelfel] – Alexander Street Press
Hamlet [directed by Eric Weinthal, Dug Rotstein] – Alexander Street Press
Commedia Dell’Arte Hamlet [directed by Nick Havinga] – Alexander Street Press