Hamlet Act 2

In Act II, something that stood out to me was Hamlet’s soliloquy on lines 563-622. In the movie, the actor displays Hamlet’s range of excitement profusely. In the Kenneth Branagh’s, Hamlet, understanding of how Hamlet started off calm, and then rose to rage, then calmed back down to a conclusion. The soliloquy didn’t so much catch my attention, but the way the movie portrayed this section made me go back to the book and re-read it. In my opinion, I believe Kenneth Branagh did a good job expressing Shakespeare’s idea. The areas where Kenneth Branagh expresses his rage is exactly where Shakespeare adds exclamation marks. You see in the book where Hamlet gets excited, as portrayed in the movie, and also where he calms down. The punctuation is key in figuring how Shakespeare wanted this section to be read.

Hamlet Act 1

As I started to read this play, I was immediately disgusted by the fact Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother and queen, married her deceased husband’s brother, Claudius. Not only did she marry him, but also the wedding ceremony’s food was provided by Older Hamlet’s funeral. At this point I feel as though any action Hamlet does that is seen crazy is very normal for the position he is in. Hamlet must feel as though everyone he loves is gone. I believe he feels he lost both his parent’s, because his mother betrayed him and married his uncle, her brother-in-law, after his father died. The only person that is truly there for him is his friend Heratio, because no one is holding Heratio back from being a friend and support system for Hamlet. Heration even expressed that he came to Older Hamlet’s funeral, not Queen Gertrude’s wedding. Even though Hamlet loves Ophelia, she has her father holding her back from being by Hamlet’s side, and right now he doesn’t need that drama and stress in his life. That could possibly make his life worse.

Poetry of Coleridge and Shelley

1. Enacting social change and political change was the main idea for most literate in the Romantic period. For instance, Kubla Khan was written to endorse social change. Coleridge wrote this poem to caution readers against the pleasure of thinking for themselves and thinking outside the box. Because of the author’s trip on opium it was safe to say his sanity was not fully intact. There is a range of views in the poem. For example, "with walls and towers were girdled round", " by woman wailing for her demon lover", and " a sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice". The author’s thoughts jump from one topic to another. The author’s mind has very eclectic thoughts, which just results to his writing into unruliness. His writing could have been a warning to readers in the dangers and confusion of using your imagination. It is great to have imagination but you have to know where to draw the line between imagination and reality. The author clearly had no boundaries, which confused his imagination with reality.

2. There are three voices being heard in the poem, which are narrator, the traveler, and the king, Ozymandias. The three voices give the listeners three different perspectives on the situations occurring the poem. The narrator might not have experienced the traveler’s journey, but that is a perspective looking from the outside in. The king’s voice informs listeners about his character. For example, Line 10-11 " My name is Ozymandias, king of kings, Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!". This shows listeners how egotistical and prideful he was. At the end of the poem it talks about how the statue fell. When statue disintegrate it was symbolizing for the downfall of his empire. The empire downfall was due to the King being hubris.