There are a number of students in my Grade 12 class that attended last year’s school trip to the Stratford Shakespeare Festival to see Ben Carlson’s performance of Hamlet, and therefore already have a pretty good grasp of the play. After Act I, we had some good class discussion about some possible collaborative essay topics and as we work through the text I am appreciating the depth of the students’ questions. Now, at the end of the second act, students are asking:
“Is Polonius’ hiring of Reynaldo (II,i) a way of spying on Laertes, testing Laertes, or a way for Polonius to protect his own reputation?” and- “What’s with all of the references to conception, pregnancy, and children in II,ii? Is this a way of hinting at the possibility that Ophelia was pregnant? And, could that then have contributed to her madness?”
Wow. I’ve had classes in the past that have spent the bulk of the unit simply trying to follow the plot and keep the characters straight, but this particular group really wants to analyse Shakespeare’s words. Their understanding of this play strikes me as being far beyond what my own was when I was in the twelfth grade, and I like to think that I’ve got the Stratford performance to thank for that.
While my initial response to their questions is always, “What do you think?”, these questions are far too irresistible not to try unraveling here … eventually.
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Image by KalinaSoftware
