William+Rigby

//**I know that this is HORRIBLY LATE but I found this quite humorous if you've also seen the original cover.**// http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwPHy17Iu6E

//**Hamlet Blog Post #4**// 2/20/2012

Well, here we have it, the end of the play where everyone and their dog dies. Except of course poor old Horatio and Osric (except in the Kenneth Branagh version, Osric gets stabbed). In any case, the play which has dilly-dallied around about philosophy and who gets to live and who gets to decide on who dies, finally ends in a blood-lust of death and destruction. However, before the play gets to all of the death, Hamlet and Laertes share some banter before the great match over who is sadder for Ophelia's death. The line that Hamlet tells Laertes isn't at all inflammatory if one reads it with indifference. "I'll be your foil, Laertes: in mine ignorance/ your skill shall, like star i' the darkest night,/ stick fiery off indeed." Hamlet is simply telling Laertes that Laertes is a far better swordsman and that Hamlet will make him look even better. This sort of "smack talk" is far different from what it is today, what with telling the other that "I'm gonna wipe the floor with you after I'm done with you." So, Laertes' response is pretty rude considering that Hamlet is simply making conversation and stating that Hamlet is a worse duelist than Laertes. Laertes was far too much of a hot head to be taken seriously and I suppose that is why it was good that he died in the end. In fact, now that I think about it, the only two people who stayed alive are the people that stayed out of other people's business and remained consoling yet indifferent. Hmmm, that creates some interesting ideas for the Socratic Seminar...

//**Hamlet Blog Post #3**// 2/12/2012

So, this week we were working on more of the play. Shocking right? Especially with our Senior Papers looming and everything, but never mind that. We'll sleep when we're dead.

AND, speaking of dead people. And sleeping. Hamlet goes into that idea pretty heavily with his To Be or Not To Be speech. Unfortunately, I covered that speech with my first blog post so I think I'll go over Claudius' soliloquy. We covered it pretty hard in class so now I have to take back what I said in my last post. GAH! I feel so dumb. :( His soliloquy is the one I almost always skip over when I peruse my copy of the complete works. So, for my own edification as well as anyone who reads this (I'm guessing no one) I've replicated it here:

KING CLAUDIUS O, my offence is rank it smells to heaven; It hath the primal eldest curse upon't, A brother's murder. Pray can I not, Though inclination be as sharp as will: My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent; And, like a man to double business bound, I stand in pause where I shall first begin, And both neglect. What if this cursed hand Were thicker than itself with brother's blood, Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy But to confront the visage of offence? And what's in prayer but this two-fold force, To be forestalled ere we come to fall, Or pardon'd being down? Then I'll look up; My fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer Can serve my turn? 'Forgive me my foul murder'? That cannot be; since I am still possess'd Of those effects for which I did the murder, My crown, mine own ambition and my queen. May one be pardon'd and retain the offence? In the corrupted currents of this world Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice, And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself Buys out the law: but 'tis not so above; There is no shuffling, there the action lies In his true nature; and we ourselves compell'd, Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults, To give in evidence. What then? what rests? Try what repentance can: what can it not? Yet what can it when one can not repent? O wretched state! O bosom black as death! O limed soul, that, struggling to be free, Art more engaged! Help, angels! Make assay! Bow, stubborn knees; and, heart with strings of steel, Be soft as sinews of the newborn babe! All may be well.

Wow, pretty long winded right? But we get to see, for the first time, what a bad guy Claudius is. Like, dang.



Who knew someone like this could be so evil? "I'm just gonna go kill my bro to take his wife, kingdom, and his crown. I wanna go to heaven but I don't actually want to have to waste my breath on a decent prayer. 'Cause I'm kinda lazy. And by kinda, I mean I just don't want to lose anything that I killed for. But it's whatever."

//**Hamlet Blog Post #2**// 2/5/2012

Well, I didn't realize this as I posted my last blog, but I did this whole thing wrong! Oops! Oh well... On to HAMLET!

This week we continued onto more of Act 1 and we split up into groups to make the play even more manageable and also make the experience quite fun. Well, my group has interpreted our scene, Act 3, Scene 1 (yes that's right, the crazy, raving, nunnery scene) into the morning after a crazy night of illegal fun where Hamlet has partaken a little too much of the fairy dust. Yes. We just made Hamlet a cocaine addict. That's how we get Shakespeare DONE! And anyway, Hamlet has gone through a lot so he is justified right? WRONG! Cocaine won't solve his fathers death. But it sure made him hallucinate. A lot. Into seeing his dead father.

See Hamlet? Your "ghost" was merely a sign that you were overdosing a leetle too much.

Anyway. From what I can tell, the scene with the ghost is the only time in the whole play where someone besides Hamlet feels that Claudius murdered Hamlet Sr. So, if we put this to the lens where Hamlet has been snorting more than his fair share of the crazy powder, then the whole play turns into the babbling mind of a mentally unstable coke-head. Not that there's anything wrong with that or anything... O_o

Hamlet's father's ghost's line "Murder most foul, as in the nest it is;/ But this most foul, strange and unnatural." for some reason always seems to make me laugh. Which is quite cruel, considering the topic, however, how can one describe a murder "strange and unnatural" without stating the obvious? Murder is the unnatural killing of someone else. It goes against nature in and of itself so when the Ghost decides to call the murder most "unnatural" it just seems like a case of stating the obvious. If you show me a murder that is considered natural then I'll eat a hat. Maybe. If it tastes good. Or I'll just salute you.

//**Hamlet Blog Post #1**// 1/29/2012

//Hamlet,// by William Shakespeare is my favorite play. Ever. No question about it. However, I have only read it in it's entirety and never watched the whole play. I viewed a version at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival where Dan Donahue played Hamlet. I was completely enthralled with his performance and so when we were assigned the job of watching a version of Hamlet over the weekend I felt like I was ready. (Oh, and here is Dan Donahue) That bro had swag. Until he went crazy and started cutting his tie off and such. Oh actors... Playing crazy people...

Anyway, I decided to watch the 4 hour Kenneth Branagh version. Don't get me wrong, it was amazing. Really solid work. But when intermission hit I was definitely feeling the blues. So, I turned it off and saved the second half for Sunday. Smart move otherwise I would have lost my mind.

Moving on, Period 2's essential question is "To Be or Not To Be? When is a life not worth living? Who gets to decide if someone should live or die? The To Be or Not To Be speech is definitely the most significant part of the play regarding our question but I won't copy and past the whole speech as it is incredibly long. **But**, I will copy and past an excerpt from it.

To be, or not to be, that is the question: Whether 'tis Nobler in the mind to suffer The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune, Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles, And by opposing end them: to die, to sleep No more; and by a sleep, to say we end The heart-ache, and the thousand Natural shocks That Flesh is heir to? 'Tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished. To die to sleep, To sleep, perchance to Dream(...)
 * Hamlet**:

In this speech, Hamlet is contemplating the idea of death and philosophizing about it. How I've always interpreted Hamlet as discussing suicide and why he won't follow through with it. It's an incredibly powerful speech and continually fascinates me on a profound level. Interestingly enough, I just went on to Wikipedia to see if my interpretation was even remotely close and Wikipedia tells me that it has four possible meanings.

Dear Shakespeare, Please don't go all Turn of the Screw ambiguous on us and make us annotate your masterpiece into a pile of ambiguous statements that no one is really certain about at all. I love your play, so please don't make it infuriatingly ambiguous. Thank you, A humble student of Boise High.