Good afternoon,
Today in class, I was very interested in the broad comments made by my classmates. I feel as though Hamlet is a bit over my head at the moment. Most of my classmates have studied this literary work before and sadly, I was not given the opportunity. Zeffirelli's Hamlet has helped make sense of some of the confusing scenes by showing me an interesting visual. I am also very interested to complete Acts II and III this evening and will compare Mel Gibson's portrayal of Hamlet to Ethan Hawk's version this weekend. I feel that if I jump right into Hamlet, studying and researching it from all angles, than I may get a better interpretation / understanding of Shakespeare's masterpiece.
Referring back to class today, I noticed how every classmate had a different interpretation of Hamlet's insanity. I agree with Alexa that his insanity is solely based on emotion. He is emotion driven and as a result, his educated mind seems to over think most of his actions and thoughts. He reason's with himself causing a schizophrenic type personality, which may be one reason Mel Gibson has chosen to play Hamlet as an overzealous (overacted) male. I cannot wait to finish and research the most famous scene in all of Hamlet, Act 3, "to be or not to be..." I feel that after we all complete Act 3, our class will have more concrete arguments to profess.
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Thanks for sharing your experience with Hamlet, Emily. It's very interesting that, unlike for the rest of us, Hamlet wasn't a part of your high school experience.
At any rate, we'll explore the notion of insanity in class on Wednesday. I think that it's hard for us to understand Hamlet's madness because today we have a completely different understanding of the definition of insanity than existed in Shakespeare's time. You'll read and discuss an article next week that historicizes madness.
Remind me to discuss the to-be-or-not-to-be speech in class next week.
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