Comments | cesario: Hamlet: Act 3, Scene IV

cesario

Hamlet: Act 3, Scene IV

Mar 05, 2008 09:06

Previous posts:

First Act:
Scene I: The Crazy Occult Forays of Marcellus and Horatio.
Scene II: Claudius is the villain, but he's still hotter than you.
Scene III: Ophelia's virginity is a national treasure. Just ask her dad and brother.
Scene IV: That a ghoooooooooost?
Scene V: "'Who's your daddy?' Now that's just inappropriate."

Second Act:
( Read more... )

shakespeare, reading: hamlet

Comments 6

lizbee March 5 2008, 20:19:00 UTC

It's a good thing he's crazy, you know, because Hamlet is such a little shit in this scene. Polonius may treat all females as children, but Hamlet's treating them all as whores. It sort of makes a person long for his death.

hedda62 March 5 2008, 21:45:05 UTC

I wonder what the "neighbour room" was? Is Hamlet going to arrange Polonius on the privy, apparently attacked by someone who crawled up through it?

Speaking of which, I read a little something this morning (from one of the Uncle John's Bathroom Readers we have sitting around in, er, the bathroom) I wanted to share with you. This is from a list of Bad Musicals:

MUSICAL: Rockabye Hamlet (1976)
TOTAL PERFORMANCES: 7
STORY: Adolescent angst and rebellion are major themes in rock music - and in Shakespeare's Hamlet. So that would make Hamlet the perfect inspiration for a rock musical, right? Wrong. Originally written as a radio play (under the title Kronberg: 1582), Rockabye Hamlet hit Broadway in 1976 with hundreds of flashing lights and an onstage band. Writers followed Shakespeare's storyline but abandoned his dialogue. They opted instead for lines like the one Laertes sings to Polonius: [ed.: I think they have this reversed] "Good son, you return to France/Keep your divinity inside your pants ( ... )

tree_and_leaf March 5 2008, 22:48:50 UTC

"It is completely unfair that my mother is a total skank, when Ophelia won't even put out."

Yep, exactly. Hamlet is being hoist by his own Madonna/ Whore petard, a bit....

catechism December 2 2008, 18:16:59 UTC

Okay, I just re-read this one because it is my favorite scene, too, and this is one of the conversations we had in my head, and also I just got to this point in my own re-reading ( ... )

cesario December 2 2008, 20:31:41 UTC

he later decided it was a sin when he didn't want to be married to Anne anymore.

Katherine was actually the wife he inherited from his brother, Anne the one he made room for. Which, now I think of it, probably makes this yet another instance of Elzabeth-flattery---carefully removing Anne Boleyn from blame for Henry getting rid of Katherine, since their marriage was an abomination in Hamlet's eyes. Umm. Yeah, it's fun how the flattery is never quite as flattering as it seems at first blush. I like to think Elizabeth saw through that, and appreciated it.

Which kind of undermines Hamlet's moral outrage a little, but I think the incest charge is, to him, a legitimate issue, even if he is special like the bus, and even if it's the lesser crime.

I think you're right, and I think this is yet another piece of evidence for why this play makes so much more sense of Hamlet is 16.

I think it's really weird that we don't ever get back to, "so, when you said 'kill a king,' what the holy hell were you talking about?"Yeah, it is weird. I can only ( ... )

catechism December 2 2008, 20:52:09 UTC

Katherine was actually the wife he inherited from his brother, Anne...

Right, right? So when Anne didn't work out, didn't he say it was because he'd committed the sin in the first place and was being punished? Argh, Henry. Don't remember. No, okay, there was an incest thing with Anne, but it was trumped-up against her brother. So, never mind! I was backwards. But that IS a good point about Elizabeth-flattery; I hadn't thought of that.

Also, I love Gertrude.