"Weary, stale, flat and unprofitable"?

Certainly not a description of our lesson today, I hope, where we watched both the grand, colourful Branagh version of Act 1, Scenes 1 and 2, and the less conventional Ethan Hawke version. You should be getting a sense of how Shakespeare's words come to full life when performed, when they are actually used to communicate. Shakespeare was himself an actor and surely wrote his words with acting very much in mind. You should also be beginning to see how meanings are formed only partially by the writer: the interpretations of readers, actors, audiences, directors etc, also create meanings.

In the previous lesson, we read Scene 2 and talked about the way Claudius is presented as king, and the way a tension between Claudius and Hamlet is set up through Hamlet's use of asides and puns, and his first soliloquy.

Your homework is to make detailed notes on Scenes 1 and 2, and to read Scene 3. Next week too we'll talk about those tragedy questions, and think about how the tragic framework of Hamlet has already been set up in the first two scenes of the play.

Mr Snapper