Something.

Hamlet is really, really repetitive. It is quite obvious that it is written like that for a reason though. As we discussed, one of the common motifs is seems vs. is. Shakespeare wants us to notice the issues that are brought up through conversation. Oftentimes Hamlets soliloquy’s show his feelings towards something but then is explained differently through the conversations he has with others, making seems vs is automatically pop into your head.

I think it is really interesting how Shakespeare wrote all of the lines to sort of have a double meaning. The characters say some things but the really mean another, for example, the part where Hamlet is talking to Gertrude about common. She says” Seek for thy noble father in the dust./ Thou know’st ’tis common. All that lives must die,/ Passing through nature to eternity.” Hamlet responds with “Ay, madam, it is common.” Like… sure it happens all of the time. Gertrude wonders why it “seems” so important to Hamlet. He does not know what she means by seems. He goes all crazy and freaks out and says Seems,” madam? Nay, it is. I know not “seems.”/ These indeed “seem,”/For they are actions that a man might play./ But I have that within which passeth show,/  These but the trappings and the suits of woe.”, basically saying that nothing is ever what you think. They are never really how they SEEM. Which leads me too my favorite lesson of the week….the plays we did. My group had the part where Hamlet finds out that the king and Polonius are there halfway through. I liked how you told us that the whole feeling you get from the play can be changed just by how the director interprets it. To me that entire lesson was about the different ways actors, actresses, directors, and the viewers interpret things and what impact different movements can make. It was interesting to see what everyone thought each scene was. In our class almost everyone guessed the scenes right. We liked the one where Hamlet never notices. I think that this way works the best with the idea of the scene and how Ophelia acts and feels towards Hamlet. In the first play, the group with noble and whoever else, Hamlet notices right away and they portrayed the scene perfectly. It just shows me that people have different ways of making different viewpoints work towards the play. The first group definitely did the scene justice.

I really loved the plays. It was so much fun to act out the scenes and it makes them a lot more memorable. It makes “close reading” a lot more entertaining. Plus, it was really cool to see how all of my classmates interpret things.