Every time that I teach the Hamlet unit, I assign a different passage for memorization. In past semesters I’ve assigned either:

• 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.’