Course Material (1/13)

       Although I can't personally relate to any part of Hamlet, I enjoyed reading and discussing it in class.  Of course I would have no clue what was going on if we hadn't read it in class together, but I was surprised how much I was able to pick out on my own when doing my annotations.  What helped me a lot with my annotations (other than sparknotes) was watching the movie interpretations.  Actually seeing the actions while the actors were speaking the lines made new connections for me about the text.
      For example, when Hamlet sees the ghost for the first time, he mentions something about how the ghost is wearing armor.  The line (sorry I can't find it but I promise it's there somewhere) sounds like Hamlet finds it strange to see his father in armor, even though Horatio found that to be exceedingly normal.  Later, when the ghost appears in Gertrude's room, Hamlet says, "My father, in his habit as he lived" meaning he looks like he did when he was alive.  In the reading I didn't even notice either of these lines. In the Branagh version, the ghost in the beginning wore armor and was intimidating, but later in the second ghost scene he was draped in cloth and was much calmer.  Seeing this interpretation made me go back to the text to investigate to find the evidence that proves that the ghost is imagined by Hamlet the second time and that he is actually insane at this point in the play (in my opinion at least).
      Conclusions like this make me realize how important staging is and how with the same dialogue, completely different decisions about the plot can be made.  Because of this, sometimes I found annotating to be difficult.  Finding diction was easy enough but syntax was tough for me.  In my eyes it was either iambic pentameter or prose.  If we read any more Shakespeare hopefully I can analyze subtle syntax better.