Shakespeare Sports

Shakespeare Sports!

Pair up and select one of the following selections. You will then summarize the passage; list any and all metaphorical devices, literary devices and/or rhetorical devices and SHOW HOW AND WHY THEY ARE BEING USED. You and your team will then present your findings to the class:

1. Page 91; Act 2, Scene 2; Polonius; lines 140 – 160

2. Page 93; Act 2, Scene 2; Polonius; lines 176 – 181; 189 – 235

3. Page 97 – 99; Act 2, Scene 2; Hamlet, R&G; lines 240 – 272

4. Page 99; Act 2, Scene 2; Hamlet, R & G; lines 273 – 315

5. Page 99 - 101; Act 2, Scene 2; Hamlet, R &G; lines 315 – 342

6. Page 103; Act 2, Scene 2; Hamlet, R & G; lines 351 – 390

7. Page 105; Act 2, Scene 2; Hamlet, R & G and players; 392 – 444

8. Page 111 – 112; Act 2, Scene; Hamlet & 1^st Player; lines 475 - 544

9. Page 117 – 119; Act 2, Scene 2; Hamlet; lines 576 – 634

The lovely Ellada and the equally lovely Roxana:

#1: Summary: Polonius tells the king he has discovered the reason Hamlet has gone crazy – he has gone crazy b/c of unrequited love for Ophelia.

Literary devices: The whole speech is dramatic irony b/c we know that’s not true.

Reason: to build suspense and intrigue.

Metaphors: Lines: 145 – 147

What would you have thought of me if I had said nothing? This is to show Polonius’ loyalty to the king.

Lord Hamlet is a prince out of thy star. This means he is a star out of your orbit.

She took the fruits of my advice. This shows arrogance.

156 – 159:

Metaphor: This perfectly details the Elizabethans’ thoughts on the appropriate behavior of a spurned lover. This is also parallelism: similarity of sentence structure or paired words or paired verb forms.

#2: Mary and Lillian:

Summary: Polonius and the king are planning to spy on Hamlet to find out why he is crazy.

Dramatic Irony: we know that Hamlet is not really crazy.

Hamlet insults him indirectly.

“For if the sun breeds maggots in a dead dog’s carrion…..”

This may be a veiled insult/pun aimed at Polonius. Sun/Son (Hamlet) is breeding maggots (baby) in a dead dog's carrion (dead dog's rotting body = Ophelia)

Of course, this is open to interpretation - like all the rantings of an insane man - and the attempt to decipher these strange rantings would increase Polonius' own paranoia.

Carrion: road kill; dead animal carcass

“Let her not walk in the sun….” another insult/pun aimed by Hamlet at Polonius

Hamlet is trying to convince Polonius that he is crazy; his insanity thus frees him to insult Polonius at will; he is also increasing Polonius’ paranoia by implying that he is having sex with Ophelia, which is a manipulative ploy to control Polonius.

Hamlet is being ironic when he says that old men are dim witted and gross to look at but that should not be spoken. (He just said what should not be spoken.)

Description of old men is an example of imagery – gross imagery but imagery none the less.

Crabs are associated with old men; Hamlet uses the crab to describe Polonius and uses the verb "scuttles" to describe how both the crab and Polonius move. The whole use of this imagery is also a kind of paradox - if one could scuttle backwards in time then one would indeed grow younger.

Lines 231 – 234: Hamlet makes a pun at Polonius’ expense when he says Polonius cannot take anything from him he doesn’t want – his presence.

Are you beginning to see what a hall of mirrors Hamlet's mind is?

Nelson:

Page 99; lines 273 – 315:

Summary: R & G speaking to Hamlet about his thoughts re: being imprisoned in Denmark. Hamlet tells them to be straight with him about why they are there.

Literary Devices:

Metaphor:

"A dream is but a shadow..."

"Beggars’ bodies...."

How and why is Shakespeare using the metaphor:

Syllogism:

Deductive reason:

All men are mortal

Socrates is a man

Therefore Socrates is mortal.

If Ambitions are shadows

And kings are ambitious

Then kings are shadows

If beggars are not made of ambitions

Then they are not made of shadows

Therefore they are the only ones who have substance.

Laura and Moises

Pages 101 – 103; lines 315 – 342

Hamlet is asking R&G why they are here. He explains that he is deeply depressed.

Irony: R. laughs and says that men no longer entertain him yet he has asked men to come and entertain.

Promontory: high cliff above a body of water or a field

Celestial spheres: The earth was at the center of a series of crystal spheres. The planets and the stars were in embedded in their own spheres and they moved along their own tracks. The sound of the crystal spheres rubbing against each other created beautiful celestial music.

Litotes: a form of understatement

The litotes is embedded in Hamlet’s speech (lines 316 – 334).

Albert:

This is an example of neo-Platonic thought – a melding of the ancient Greco philosophy of Man with the Christian philosophy of Man. Man is at the top of the hierarchy as created by God.

Hamlet’s lines to R & G is expressive of a deeply depressed – perhaps even clinically depressed – man.

Nietzschean thought.

Hamlet is expressing existential despair - the meaninglessness of life, of man, of the world. This most beautiful, most excellent canopy fretted with gold fires – is to him just a sky. Man? The paragon of animals, with faculties like a god, with movement like an angel – to Hamlet is just a perfect example of dust (remember the Bible: Dust to Dust? Ashes to Ashes?). The above lines are filled with beautifully despairing imagery.

Kacey; Pages:101 – 103; lines 351 – 390:

Summary: R&G is using an allusion to Greek mythology (Atlas carries the globe on his shoulders – the Globe is also the name of Shakespeare’s theatre).

R & G:

Synecdoche:

"Throwing about brains" is a synecdoche b/c the seat of thought is in the brain and cannot exist without the organ.

Metaphor:

Do they grow rusty? Reference to the adult actors

Metaphor:

Aerie of children: An aerie is an eagle’s nest. This is a comparison of children to eagles

Eyases: little eaglets

This is an extended metaphor for a real historic event occurring in Shakespeare’s time in which adult theatre companies were suffering from the competition posed by theatres comprised of child actors. This reference not only affords Shakespeare the opportunity to speak out on the annoying children's theatres that were siphoning off money and audiences from his theatre, but also gives an explanation why the Players are touring the countryside.

Daion, Veronica, and Albert:

Pages 97 – 99:

Lines 240 – 272:

Summary: R & G speak to Hamlet about their state of happiness. They refer to being in the “middle part of Fortune”, which is not too extreme in either direction – not too great a fortune nor too little.

Lines 241- 243: Verbal irony is revealed when R & G greet Hamlet as their most noble lord; however, they are going to spy on and backstab their most noble lord.

The verbal irony continues with Hamlet also expressing verbal irony when he greets them extravagantly for he knows why they are there.

Irony when R & G expresses happiness at not being too happy. They are not the button on the cap of fortune, neither are they on the sole of the feet of fortune, but they are on the middle part of Fortune, which is close to her “nether regions” – her private, sexual parts. Hamlet implies they are having good fortune b/c they are sleeping with Fortune. Fortune is a whore. This is an extended metaphor for Hamlet is implying that they have sold themselves out to do Claudius’ bidding.

Metaphor:

Denmark is a prison.

Then the world is a prison.

To R & G, Denmark is not that bad so if Denmark is a prison then so is the world.

Line 262 – 266:

Hamlet expresses existential awareness.

Araceli and Sharon

Pages 105

Lines: 392 – 444:

Summary:

The players have arrived.

Allusion:

Hamlet accuses Polonius of being Jepthah, a biblical allusion to a man who sacrificed his daughter. This of course, is a dig at Polonius’ treatment of his own daughter, Ophelia.

Proverb:

I know a hawk from a handsaw.

Dramatic Irony:

Hamlet is implying that he is crazy only when he needs to be.

Metaphor:

The great baby there is not out of his swaddling clothes.

A reference to Polonius being old and going into his second childhood.

Metaphor:

Mother/Aunt and Uncle/Father: this shows Hamlet’s refusal to accept the legitimacy of his mother and uncle’s union.

Irony:

Polonius belatedly tells Hamlet that the players have already arrived – a fact that points up the difference in awareness between the two men.

Sebastian and Jordan:

Pages 111; lines 475 – 540

Summary:

Hamlet speaks to the players about the play they are going to perform.

Simile:

Rugged Pyrrhus

Comparing Pyrrhus with the raging beast.

Imagery:

The description of Priam’s slaughter by Pyrrhus is filled with bloody imagery, allusion, personification and metaphor.

Alliteration:

"But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword…."

This alliteration also acts as a sort of an onamatopoeia in that the “w” and the “f” sound taken together mimic the sound of a sword cutting the air.

Hecuba, Priam’s wife, screams at the sight of her aged husband being butchered by Pyrrhus. This is in stark contrast with the reality of Gertrude’s reaction to the death of her husband. Hamlet's request for the recitation of this brutal passage - the retelling of the savagery inflicted on an aged king and his queen's anguish over the murder - is masochistic and perhaps is used to gall and spur his pain into some sort of action.

Eina and Hector:

Lines 117 – 119; lines 576 – 634

Hamlet’s instructions to the actors. He compares himself to the actor – the actor can summon real tears, while Hamlet, who has real reasons to cry, is instead frozen into inaction.

Soliloquy:

The speeches by Hamlet are soliloquies.

Simile:

Most like a whore must unpack my heart.
Hamlet is comparing himself to a whore.

Hyperbole:

Lines: 589 – 590: “Who drowns the stage with tears…?”

Hamlet is comparing himself to an actor who is filled with emotion over a fictitious circumstances; however, he who has real tragedy in his life cannot summon the will to action to avenge his father’s murder.

Personification:

“For murder, having no tongue, will speak with most miraculous organ.”

Hamlet is saying that Claudius, confronted with his actions on stage, will reveal his guilt – perhaps not by speech but by other means – expressions of shock, dismay or physical manifestations uncontrollable by will that will reveal his guilt.