Final options
1. Test—of the kind you’ve seen from me before: ID’s, passages, short essay.
2. Essay—three pages on a topic chosen from one specific aspect of the play: a discussion of the stages and phases of Hamlet’s state of mind, drawn from his soliloquies; the purposes and functions of the roles of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Hamlet’s relationship with Ophelia, the significance of one scene to the play as a whole, or a similar topic of your devising, chosen in consultation with me.
3. Performance—EITHER a monolog memorized and performed for the class, approximately 25 lines: one of Hamlet’s soliloquies, Claudius’ prayer, the Player King’s monolog during the play-within-the-play, Gertrude telling Laertes of Ophelia’s death. OR a video of a scene (20-25 lines times the number of characters), with approximately equal measures of dialog for each of the participants. The only caveat for this option is to avoid turning tragedy into comedy by creating a deliberately exaggerated or distorted version of your scene. In either case, the performance must be accompanied by a written copy of the scene, with subtext identified to show the goals of the performance.
Due Day 1 of next week for tests and essays (Monday for sections 1, 2, & 3, Tuesday for section 4), day 2 for performances.
