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Hamlet Assignment #1 Kubus English 3, Hamlet, Performance Comparison “One More Time with Feeling”: Hamlet’s First Soliloquy Performance Comparison Due Dates: Monday, November 5, 2018 Length: 500-750 words Value: 100-pt essay grade Submission method: Submit to turnitin.com by 3:30 pm, 5 November 2018. Normal late policy applies. Topic: Compare two performances of Hamlet’s first soliloquy Most of us talk to ourselves in some way, sometimes aloud, but very few of us (I hope) have any vocal vehicle for sustained self-reflection. We may, of course, speak to ourselves silently lest we be labeled any number of cruel epithets by those who overhear us. Some thoughts are best kept to ourselves. That is, unless you’re a character in a play. Soliloquy literally means talking alone, and it has been used as a form since the Greeks, though popularized by Shakespeare and his contemporary playwrights. In the theater, no thinking can be made directly available to the audience unless it is brought to speech, so it was necessary to propose a convention: the character would speak aloud, and the audience would understand that what they were to imagine they were hearing was what the character was saying to himself, or what he would say if he were to give voice to his thought. I’ve already mentioned in class that real drama occurs when characters keep things from each other. The ONLY time, in fact, that an audience should accept that what characters say is absolutely true is when a character is in soliloquy. In all other instances there’s the possibility of deceit. So it’s the responsibility of the playwright in a soliloquy to communicate what is absolutely true. Your next assignment will compare two performances of Hamlet’s first soliloquy, interpreting cinematic and narrative techniques and constructing an argument about how each Hamlet differs from the other. If done right this assignment will help you to think more critically about ways in which Hamlet communicates his innermost and true thoughts. Begin by watching this great video on soliloquy with Paapa Essiedu produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company. What does he have to say about the importance of soliloquy, how to read one, and how to get it in your body during performance? He’s a great interpreter of Shakespeare’s text. CLIPS (in no particular order): Performance #1: Hamlet (2009), performed by David Tennant, directed by Gregory Doran Performance #2: Hamlet (2013), performed by Jonathan Slinger, directed by David Farr Performance #3: Hamlet (2010), performed by Rory Kinnear, directed by Nicholas Hytner Performance #4: Hamlet (1996), performed by Kenneth Branagh, directed by Kenneth Branagh Performance # 5: Hamlet (2016), performed by Paapa Essiedu, directed by Simon Godwin [0:31-1:32] Performance # 6: Hamlet (2014), performed by Maxine Peake, directed by Sarah Frankcom [11:43-14:37] Kubus English 3, Hamlet, Performance Comparison How’s it done? 1) Watch all six clips. Then choose the one that most inspires you. Mine, for instance, is Paapa Essiedu’s. Choose one of the other five versions of the speech, taking notes on the performance choices by both director and performer. What conversations do you imagine them having, and what decisions do they come to about the character at this moment in the play? 2) Rather than offering a catalogue of your observations regarding the films’ similarities and differences, your essay should pose an argument about the significance of the connection. The structure of your argument could be the same as always: “I want to show you these elements of performance in order to argue that Tennant’s Hamlet is…, unlike Peake’s Hamlet who understands…” 3) Although the comparison/contrast essay examines a large-scale question, close “textual” analysis will serve as your main source of evidence. In supporting your argument, you will need to pay attention to how the films interpret the speech through narrative and/or cinematic techniques. Focus on specific shots, movements, intonations, pauses, the cinematic codes at work in these scenes that give insight into emotion and motivation. You’ve done a great job of this in class already; now we want to translate our discussions to our essays. We’ve been closely reading texts; now we’re closely reading film – same methodology, different types of evidence. 4) While you can organize your comparison/contrast essay in several ways, you should avoid discussing one film in full, then turning to the other. This format relegates the comparison/contrast to the second half of the paper. Instead, you can structure the first part of the essay around similarities, moving from one film to the other, and the second part around differences, discussing each film in turn. You can also focus each paragraph on one similarity or difference, discussing examples from both films. Explore, discover, be delighted. Don’t even think about googling. My office door is always open if you have any questions. Aggressively search and destroy errors with extreme prejudice. I want to see you take more pride on your work. Proofread, proofread, proofread. I’m also very interested in your continued ability to be a better sentence-level writer. Impress me with separating two related independent clauses with a semicolon. Use a paired construction. Try bringing in a series without a conjunction. Anything new! Review your MLA rules. Don’t lose easy points. Also, check this site out for help with citing film. DO NO GOOGLING Googling is done by the man looking for the quick fix; googling is stopgap thinking; it’s putting a BandAid on a fatal wound. Googling is for tourists. Don’t be a tourist; let yourself live in your essays. REVIEW COMMUNITY LIFE for what constitutes plagiarism. Be moral. Refer to the MLA Handbook regularly. One day, your life may be saved because you know proper MLA citation (I have a story.). PROOFREAD. You should know that for each and every spelling, grammatical, and citation error, you will lose 1-pt. Do not lose these easy points. Be good to yourself and BEGIN EARLY. Build in time to meet with me, to fully think through your ideas, to go back and revise. Yes, this is a major grade for the first quarter and, yes, you are being held to a high standard; but more importantly, you owe it to yourself as an active learner to do this the right way. So get to work. Here is the grindstone… .
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