I think that Polonius repeatedly proves that he is more concerned with his own reputation than he is with the well-being of either Laertes or Ophelia. He first demonstrates this in his ordering of Ophelia to break off her relationship with Hamlet when he seems to be looking for an opportunity to emphasize his loyalty to Claudius. He first boasts to his daughter that he remembers what it’s like to be young and that he knows what Hamlet is after (“springes to catch woodcocks”), and perhaps he does… after all, just what are the circumstances of his parenthood? Where is the mother of Ophelia and Laertes? Then, Polonius implies that perhaps Hamlet has already achieved what he sought, telling Ophelia, “and you yourself / Have of your audience been most free and bounteous.” Finally, Polonius seems to relish in the ability to confide in the King and Queen:

What might you think [of me]? No, I went round to work,

And my young mistress thus I did bespeak:

‘Lord Hamlet is a prince out of thy star.

This must not be.’ (II,ii,147)

Oh really? Is it so hard to believe that Hamlet and Ophelia could marry when the Queen herself tells Ophelia:

And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish

That your good beauties be the happy cause

Of Hamlet’s wildness. So shall I hope your virtues

Will bring him to his wonted way again,

To both your honours. (III,i,42)

And later, Gertrude adds:

I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet’s wife

I thought thy bride-bed to have decked… (V,i,250)

Perhaps Polonius is simply worried too that should Ophelia and Hamlet marry, his position as adviser to Claudius would be jeopardized, that he would be relegated to some ceremonial role as father-in-law of the Prince. He does not care for Ophelia’s happiness.

So, when it comes to his hiring of Reynaldo, I am skeptical as to whether or not it can have anything to do with Laertes’ benefit. Yes, I believe that this ‘tedious old fool’, this ‘wretched, rash, intruding fool’ is spying on his son, and is testing his son, but that these motives pale in comparison to a desire to protect his own reputation and his own position of power as adviser to the King. The important thing is to tone down any blemish that may arise in his family.

More importantly, perhaps, is the juxtaposition of his hiring of Reynaldo to spy on Laertes in II,i with Claudius’ hiring of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in II,ii to spy on Hamlet. I think that Shakespeare is perhaps showing the audience that Polonius and Claudius are birds-of-a-feather.

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Image by littledan77

Over the past year, my colleagues and I managed to meet infrequently — more often in a swimming pool than at the Cafe — and had a lot of fun debating the merits and meanings of Shakespeare’s words. I would happily repeat this exercise of a Shakespeare book club with my colleagues in the future, especially if we would agree to skip King Henry VIII which surely is not the work of William Shakespeare. (Forgetting that there was considerable debate over the authorship of that particular play, I kept pausing from the reading of it to complain to my wife, “This just doesn’t feel like a Shakespeare play.”)

Shakespeare taught me something about the way I learn: my understanding of the text increased ten-fold if I created and maintained a visual map of the play as I read. Based on characters’ relationships and settings, I would chart an outline of each play to keep everything straight. I’ve always done this on the chalkboard for students to assist them with characters’ names, but I think I should give them the opportunity to create their own ‘chart’; many visual and spatial learners would perhaps organize it much differently.

I saved Cymbeline for last, remembering that Tennyson had a copy open on his lap when he died. This bit of trivia really struck me when I approached Act V, Scene IV and read of Posthumus’ readiness for death, “I am merrier to die than thou art to live.”

Perhaps our English department will repeat this exercise soon? Another Bard Book Club on the horizon?

• “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

• Hamlet’s first soliloquy, ‘O that this too too sullied flesh would melt…’ (I,ii)
• Hamlet’s explanation to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, ‘I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth…’ (II,ii), or
• the ‘To be or not to be’ soliloquy (III,i)

This time, I’m assigning the soliloquy that closes the second act, ‘O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!’ It is a long soliloquy and from it students may choose the 25 lines of their choice. I actually allow them a 3-strikes-you’re-out rule: on their third attempt, they are given one mark for each line they recite perfectly. I like to allow a second and third attempt for this assignment, because it really is something that I’d like them to ace.

At huffenglish.com, Dana Huff said,

I have noticed memorization doesn’t seem to be much practiced nowadays, and I think it’s a shame.

Our students have the ability to commit great literature to memory; it would be a shame not to encourage them to do so, for it will give them pleasure for the remainder of their days. My grandmother, in her 80s, still recites her elementary school memorization assignment, Lowell’s What Is So Rare As A Day In June, and my wife’s grandfather can recite Browning’s The Pied Piper of Hamelin. It is the assignment that keeps on giving.

Though I like to use the memorization and recitation assignment to help students exercise their oral communication skills, I am always careful to save this assignment for my favourite, the Hamlet unit because I cannot resist the challenge of this assignment myself and there is little that I’d enjoy more than to have the great passages of this play stored ‘about my brain.’

Though my current class will see some of my earlier focus — having students play the role of film director by making such decisions as how they would stage the ghost and who they would cast in each role, etc. — the focus this time is on the text. Because the culminating activity will be a collaborative essay (through the use of their individual blogs and comments) we’re spending a little more time than usual debating some questions, including:

• Is it important to the story whether or not Hamlet believes in heaven?
• Is Gertrude a sinister accomplice of Claudius? (Consider the deaths of King Hamlet and of Ophelia.)
• Could the ghost be a figment of Hamlet’s imagination?
• Is Hamlet mad?
• Is Hamlet really a tragic hero, or is he a villain?
• Does Hamlet really love Ophelia?
• Do Rosencrantz and Guildenstern get what they deserve?
• Does Hamlet have an Oedipus complex?
• Does Hamlet’s behaviour suggest that he’s closer to 16 than to 30 years of age?

I especially like the collaborative essay for this class, because I’ve got a group that is particularly fond of debate. Their first blog posts are up and their first comments are due by the end of the week, responding to at least two others that have approached an issue from an opposing angle. By the end of next week, partners should have surfaced for a virtual debate via their blogs, and by the end of the following week their collaborative essays, in a “They say, I say” format, will be typed.

I think that the current group that I’ve got will be able to pull this off and have fun with it. Time will tell.

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Image by bansidhe

The Piano Man’s Daughter

The students shared a lot of ideas and discussed the ants and their City of Thebes, James’ abacus, and the wreath of flowers, as well as the town of McCaskill’s Mills, the Great Toronto Fire, and the poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

The highlight for me of our lunch-time meeting was the student-posed question, “Do you think Lily Kilworth is a Hamlet-like character?” Wow. I didn’t coerce the students into this train of thought; indeed, it hadn’t even occurred to me. But I’ve been able to think of little else since.

It makes sense. If we reverse genders, then Lily = Hamlet and Lizzie Wyatt = Ophelia. Also, Ede could be Gertrude and Frederick Wyatt could be Claudius with his dead brother, ‘the piano man’ Tom Wyatt certainly filling the role of the dead king Hamlet. The parallels are endless:

• Frederick Wyatt steps in and marries the ‘widowed’ Ede Kilworth
• Frederick is cruel to Ede’s daughter, Lily, and sends her to her fate (locked up in the attic)
• Lily is suicidal; she would melt, thaw, and resolve herself into a dew
• Lily’s wit is diseased, and she is dangerous; she must not unwatched go
• Lily is haunted by the ghost of her uncle John Fagan; she holds discourse with the incorporal air
• The ghost tries to inspire Lily to kill, to avenge his most foul and unnatural incarceration
• Like Ophelia after Polonius’ death, so Lizzie after his meddling father’s death immediately loses his mind and dies

… and on and on.

The Piano Man’s Daughter is a great novel for high school students to read, study, and write about.

No, with College level students, our three-week focus is on understanding and enjoying the story of Hamlet and its production. Students are challenged to think about changes that they would make were they producing the play.

One of the most enjoyable aspects of the unit for students is when they speculate on how they would stage the Ghost in Act 1.

What Worked Well

• The handout that I provide is easy for students to follow. Their task is to find five quotes in Act 1 that describe the Ghost, and this handout proves to be a good guide for that.
• Students have fun comparing their ideas for staging the Ghost with the decisions made by the director of a production that we view in class.
• Students use ten words of their own to describe the Ghost. This helps them clarify their images of the Ghost and sharpens their ideas for their own imagined production.
• Students always have fun sketching a zombie of their own and describing his movement and voice.

What Needs Work

• Trying to fit this unit in between Thanksgiving and the Fall Break has rushed this entire unit and students just didn’t have enough time to speculate on the Ghost. Two-and-a-half weeks is rushing it; I feel like this unit is probably about a week shorter than it should have been. (It didn’t help that a large group of the students were on a three-day canoe trip with the Outdoor Education class, either.)

However, this past week, my misplaced iPod remained somewhere at home, and the first Act required a different approach.

I recalled my own English teacher, Mr. X. Lee, who, almost oblivious of the 30 students before him, held a shut copy of Hamlet and, eyes on the back wall, recited the play while we followed along in our texts.

I cannot recite the play. Not yet. But someday…

I chose instead to read Act 1 aloud with my students following along.

While I won’t burden my students with these thoughts, this latest re-reading has led me to ponder the character of Fortinbras for a change. I have been told, in the past, that Fortinbras is a character with whom the audience should contrast Hamlet (much like Laertes). But after reading Act I aloud to my Grade 12 class, Fortinbras and Hamlet seem almost identical. As shadows or reflections of each other.

Obviously there is the similarity in their circumstances: each the son of a dead king and still without any throne. In Act I Scene ii, lines 32,37, Claudius himself makes it clear that Fortinbras’ uncle, Old Norway, has slipped onto the throne ahead of his nephew. But I think too that there is a similarity in the nature of the Princes’ characters.

Rather than being the man of action that I had been previously led to believe of him, it is apparent that Fortinbras has been waiting 30 years to get the revenge he seeks (see the Grave-digger’s calculation in V,i,164). (Thirty years! Hamlet would actually appear positively speedy by comparison!) Of course, Claudius scoffs at the idea that Fortinbras has waited until Denmark is “disjoint and out of frame” (I,ii,20), but the king is wrong and both Hamlet and Fortinbras accurately recognize that there is “some strange eruption to the state” (I,i,80), that “something is rotten in the state of Denmark” (I,iv,99), and that “the time is out of joint” (I,v,206).

I believe the Prince of Norway is as wildly popular there as Hamlet is in Denmark. We are told of Hamlet about “the great love the general gender bear him” (IV,vii,20) and about Fortinbras that he is able to, in secret and illegally, raise an army of outlaws, “a list of lawless resolutes” (I,i,109). However, Fortinbras is easily distracted. When Claudius writes a letter to Old Norway, Fortinbras recycles his Danish scheme as a Polish expedition.

Ultimately, of course, it is Hamlet’s actions that litter the stage with corpses and allow Fortinbras to slide onto a vacant throne. Still, Hamlet has recognized in Fortinbras a kindred spirit, and ‘gives him his dying voice’ (V,ii,375), approving of Fortinbras ruling in Denmark. For his part, Fortinbras requites Hamlet’s praise and says of the dead Danish prince, “For he was likely, had he been put on, / To have proved most royally” (V,ii,421).

Indeed that should be Fortinbras’ hope: for he is incapable of governing in any manner different from Hamlet; they are simply too identical, and Fortinbras should hope that it is a royal disposition he himself possesses.

I love the first day of my Hamlet unit.

After O Canada this morning, I climbed on top of a cabinet at the back of the room and, towering over my students with Yorick on my hip, recited “What a piece of work is a man …” (Act 2, Scene 2, l. 310-25).

Today we introduced Shakespeare, dug up some Hamlet trivia, and brainstormed around major themes. Students created Venn diagrams of Revenge and Justice; Murder and Execution; and Insanity and Obsession. Interesting stuff. The students seem to get really excited about this material.

It’s an annual lesson for me: my passion transfers to students. And the sobering corollary: my disinterest likewise rubs off. That’s why it’s important for me to keep things interesting for myself and to work with texts that I genuinely like.

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Photo by Kessiye

I’m happy that I’ve missed the whole reality TV craze. My conscience isn’t a bit bothered that I haven’t seen an episode of Survivor.

However, there have apparently been a few TV gems over the last few years. Recently my department head handed me the DVDs of the first two seasons of Slings and Arrows. She thought that I might want to watch it before I start my next Hamlet unit.

She was absolutely right. The show was wonderfully done – sharply scripted and intelligently acted. I’ve watched the six episodes of the first season, all of which relate in some way to Hamlet. (Season 2 is about Macbeth; Season 3, King Lear.)

My Grade 12 class would benefit from seeing artistic director Geoffrey Tennant (played by Paul Gross) providing background to characters:

• His explanation of Macbeth’s emotions to an accountant.
• His description of Ophelia’s youthful madness and its source.
• His challenge to an actor to decide what Hamlet knows before delivering the famous Act 3, Scene 1 soliloquy.

I appreciated the reflection of Hamlet in Paul Gross’s character – conversations with a ghost, questions about his sanity, and the lingering hurt of a deep betrayal.

Instructors will want to carefully preview any clips intended for classroom use to avoid the very coarse language, sex, and drugs.

Unable to travel back in time to revisit Paul Gross’s Hamlet at the Stratford Festival (which remains the definitive Hamlet for me), the Slings and Arrows DVDs do a great job of reminding of all that I loved about that production.