Thanksgiving Break

Remember to read and take notes from where we left off in class to the end of 4.7 in Hamlet. If you missed class yesterday you'll be reading from the beginning of 4.5 to the end of 4.7.

Also remember to do the 4.4 soliloquy assignment outlined in the previous post.

Here's the Ophelia Speaks assignment for those interested in getting a head start over Thanksgiving break.

Ophelia Speaks

Role: You are a playwright commissioned by a theatrical troupe to create a soliloquy (or monologue or text written by Ophelia) that will be inserted into Hamlet.

Audience: Readers and viewers of Hamlet who want to understand Ophelia more deeply.

Format:       1. a soliloquy (or monologue)

                   2. 14+ lines*

3. The lines conclude with a rhyming couple in iambic pentameter. See 3.1 monologue blog post for notes on iambic pentamenter. (*The other 12 lines may be in prose or in iambic pentameter (blank verse).

4. State where in the play you would insert the soliloquy (or monologue). (Would you create a 4.8? Would you place it somewhere in 4.5? Where? Be precise: act, scene, line. You could even, I suppose, create a 4.8 in which she returns as a ghost; or perhaps someone finds a letter she has written or a diary.)

5. Refer to song lyrics and flower imagery (from 4.5).

6. Show Ophelia’s mind puzzling out and wrestling with her dramatic situation and inner consciousness.

Topic: What Ophelia is thinking and feeling at the moment in the play into which you decide to insert her soliloquy?

Due Wednesday, November 30. 

4.5 (Ophelia's songs) Kate Winslet as Ophelia, directed by Kenneth Branagh 

4.5 (Ophelia's flowers and final song) Kate Winslet as Ophelia, directed by Kenneth Branagh 

4.5 (Ophelia's songs) Mariah Gale as Ophelia, directed by Gregory Doran

4.5 (Ophelia's flowers and final song) Mariah Gale as Ophelia, directed by Gregory Doran

4.5 (sort of...) (two different selections) Helena Bonham-Carter as Ophelia, directed by Franco Zeffirelli

This video is a montage edited (by someone using the name Call Me Isolde) of images of Julia Stiles as Ophelia, directed by Michael Almereyda, accompanied by Cat Power (Chan Marshall) covering Velvet Underground's song "I Found a Reason" 

4.7 Eileen Herlie as Gertrude (Jean Simmons as Ophelia), directed by Laurence Olivier. The imagery in the scene is based on this famous painting of Ophelia (1851-2) by John Everett Millais now located in the Tate Museum in London.