Hamlet

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I didn't really know whether to put this in Performing Arts or Books or somewhere else but basically, thanks to a misquote I NEED the final paragraph of Hamlet. I heard somebody massacre it, but can't remember the real ending and now it's stuck in my head. And my Shakespeare is all at my Dad's house 120 miles East of me Sad

Grrrr

So please, I beg of ye: can anybody find me, or recite me or type out of a book the end of the closing speech of Hamlet?

Many thanks
Boo

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Hamlet is a play, so there is no such thing as a closing "paragraph." However, this is the final speech, made by Fortinbras, which brings down the curtain:

Let four captains
Bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage;
For he was likely, had he been put on,
To have proved most royally: and for his passge,
The soldiers' music and the rites of war
Speak loudly for him.
Take up the bodies: such a sight as this
Becomes the field, but here shows much amiss.
Go, bid the soldiers shoot.

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*pulls a face* you know what i meant. The final chunk that is about the size of a paragraph

Anyway you're an angel in white - thanks

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Writing a critical essay on Hamlet.

(No, I don't want anyone to do my homework) Laughing

I'm charging toward my conclusion.

But, I am interested. Did anyone write on male subjectivity re Fortinbras specifically? I'm freezing in the SLC writing mine and thought it would be interesting to know the theses that evolved from you guys.

Practically everybody in my peer review group wrote on female gender issues.

Anyway, most everyone here likely had to pass the gauntlet of the Hamlet essay. I think it would be entertaining to know people's theses.

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Could you elaborate on that, Lash? What, specifically, do you mean by "male subjectivity re Fortinbras"? Not sure I catch your drift.

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Just the theory that Hamlet was paralyzed into inaction because he was in the shadow of masculine ideals--his warrior father and his war-like rival, Fortinbras...?

His grief is called "unmanly" by Claudius... The traditional gender thing...?

So it goes-- he can't compete with his father's "ghost" so to speak and Fortinbras, prowling out in the snow...

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Hmm. Well...

(If you knew me in person, you'd know I do this in "real life" too -- hem and haw and clear my throat a lot while thinking. Smile

)

I really think -- and it's only my opinion, mind you -- that we're always in danger of running aground when we start to attach the values of our own times (e.g. anti-sexism) to literature that was written some 400 years ago. The Elizabethan audience for which Shakespear was writing would have expected Hamlet to act in a "manly" manner. They knew how a prince was supposed to act. No woman in the audience would have assumed that a man of Hamlet's "station" could also have a soft side, a touchy-feely sensibility. In this sense, at least, Shakespeare is startlingly modern. He allows a more or less stock character -- a warrior prince of Denmark -- to have doubts, to act indecisively, to be (can I say this?) human. Don't forget that gender roles were quite strictly assigned in Elizabethan England. I suspect that a large part of the audience was still in shock over the fact that England now had -- for the first time in its history -- an unmarried queen, instead of a woman who would have been a queen in name only and in reality no more than a consort to her husband, the king (even if that husband was not actually styles 'king' but, rather, 'prince consort'.) Elizabeth's half-sister Mary had, at least, been married to that Spanish popinjay.

But the royal diddlings are really beside the point. Fortinbras -- and, to a lesser extent, Horatio, too -- provide sobering masculine contrasts to Hamlet's indecision and vacillation. Foortinbras' speech at the end of the play provides a kind of validation and expiation to Hamlet's previous actions throughout the story. He orders four captains to carry Hamlet off "like a soldier." The stage is littered with corpses at this point! In the eyes of a true soldier, such as Fortinbras is, Hamlet has finally proved that he is of royal blood indeed. I see this not as a gender-specific judgement so much as an expression of the rights and responsibilities of one of royal station.

Ahem. Uh...

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Hamlet is a raucous comedy, part send-up of previous overdone versions of the play (including one by Kyd that predates it by a couple of years), part good old-fashioned bloodbath, part ghost story. Tripe, entertainment, a goof, a lark.

And everyone tries to make it a big tragedy.

(Anyway, that's my take on it.)

(Wish there would be a cheeky modern film adaptation of it like the folks who made Scotland, PA did for the Scottish play...)

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Merry Andrew wrote:

Hmm. Well...

(If you knew me in person, you'd know I do this in "real life" too -- hem and haw and clear my throat a lot while thinking. )

I really think -- and it's only my opinion, mind you -- that we're always in danger of running aground when we start to attach the values of our own times (e.g. anti-sexism) to literature that was written some 400 years ago.

Yes, but... What you say seems identical to what I said. Hamlet was pronoucedly "unmanly" due to rigid expectations re gender roles. Hmmm. <looks thoughtfully off into the distance...>

Yet, I feel you as I peruse the nuttified essays on Hamlet from every conceivable type of person. The Queer Theorists see the duel between Hamlet and Laertes as some gay mating dance--Ophelia has a feminist cult following and I don't even want to talk about the Freudians! <ahem>

The Elizabethan audience for which Shakespear was writing would have expected Hamlet to act in a "manly" manner.

My point exactly. :wink:

They knew how a prince was supposed to act. No woman in the audience would have assumed that a man of Hamlet's "station" could also have a soft side, a touchy-feely sensibility. In this sense, at least, Shakespeare is startlingly modern.

I have developed a surprising (to me) new respect for Shakespeare. LOVE the play.

He allows a more or less stock character -- a warrior prince of Denmark -- to have doubts, to act indecisively, to be (can I say this?) human.

Warrior prince? What leads you to that description? <curious>....<learning>

But the royal diddlings are really beside the point. Fortinbras -- and, to a lesser extent, Horatio, too -- provide sobering masculine contrasts to Hamlet's indecision and vacillation.

Yes. This is my thesis, more or less. Thanks for commenting. My prof is the most demanding I've experienced yet and I'm sort of quaking. You seem attracted to Hamlet. Is Lit a specialty of yours?
Foortinbras' speech at the end of the play provides a kind of validation and expiation to Hamlet's previous actions throughout the story. He orders four captains to carry Hamlet off "like a soldier." The stage is littered with corpses at this point! In the eyes of a true soldier, such as Fortinbras is, Hamlet has finally proved that he is of royal blood indeed. I see this not as a gender-specific judgement so much as an expression of the rights and responsibilities of one of royal station.
Thanks for that opinion at the end. I thought--more simplistically--that violence was sort of used as a symbol of masculinity and that's how Hamlet got the Fortinbras Seal of Approval.
Ahem. Uh...

<hmmm>

Thanks so much for your insights. It's amazing to me how many different ways Hamlet can be twisted. Very Happy

I have refreshed and see PD's yearning for a cheeky adaptation. Sherwood Shwartz did one. I'll try to return with a link.

:wink:

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Gilligan as Hamlet

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Merry! I should use bios when my memory fails.

"I teach at a detention facility for incarcerated youthful offenders and do some contract work for the US State Dept. Language, literature and history are among my chief interests."

Any additional thoughts on Shakespeare, lit, Hamlet or anything marginally related would be greatly appreciated.

Are you still teaching?

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I thought the last lines were about a prince and angels and some moral by a narrator?

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The lines were spoken by Fortinbras, Rex. Very Happy

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Horatio's words upon Hamlet's death are "Farewell, sweet prince, and may flights of angels sing thee to thy rest." Since most productions cut Fortinbras out of the script together, it usually goes straight from that to line "Bear Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, to the stage." (I think.)

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Yeah!

The Mel Loves Glenn Close edition didn't even mention Fortinbras!

<demoralized>

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Lash wrote:

Yeah!

The Mel Loves Glenn Close edition didn't even mention Fortinbras!

<demoralized>

Thx Lash, could you explain?

I admit the (Mel Gibson) movie is most of my knowledge of the play.

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Boy, can I...
But, I can't do it justice here.

The Kenneth Branaugh Hamlet is much closer to the text, but he (like everybody) casts their own interpretations with direction and stuff.

Basically, the political machinations of Denmark and Norway play heavily into the story. Fortinbras is Hamlet's Norwegian counterpart and is amassing an army to reclaim lands lost by his father, who was slain in battle by Hamlet's recently deceased father... <gasps for breath...>

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I mean, Franco Zeffirelli should be shot.

You missed the whole Act Four: Scene Four soliloquy, which is pivotal to Hamlet's behavior....for a lip-lock between Mel and Close. Bad trade, I say!

I nearly barfed.

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Lash wrote:

I mean, Franco Zeffirelli should be shot.

You missed the whole Act Four: Scene Four soliloquy, which is pivotal to Hamlet's behavior....for a lip-lock between Mel and Close. Bad trade, I say!

I nearly barfed.

Hmmm

But the acting and filmography was very nice.

What do you think was the motivation behind the deleted scenes?

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I read recently that there is a school of criticism that consider the "family dynamics" of the Danish royal family to be metaphorical to the "state of Denmark"....yes, you know, something is stinko in the state of...

So, Zeferilli (it was said) chose to enact the whole thing through the family, rather than dilute his efforts showing the external crisis along with the internal...

What did you think of the movie? I thought Zeferilli's set was more believable--but I don't know what I base that on, really. I have to say-- I hated the whole Freudian interpretation--but love Glenn Close.

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Hamlet

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