How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable/Seem to me all the uses of this world!

 Have you ever felt like poor Hamlet?  That the world is empty of meaning and purpose?

You were to have read Act 1, scene 1.  In your group, describe what the men in this scene think about ghosts. (Use the following quotes to come up with specific ideas.)  Do you agree with them?

PARAPHRASE (write in your own words) the following passages:

1.  'tis but our fantasy (I, i, 23)

2.  Thou art a scholar (line 42)

3.  This bodes some strange eruption to our state (line 69)

4.  A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,

The graves stood tenantless and the sheeted dead

Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets. (lines 114-116)

5.  If thou art privy to thy country's fate,

Which, happily, foreknowing may avoid,

O, speak! (lines 133-135)

6.  We do it wrong, being so majestical,

To offer it the show of violence;

For it is, as the air, invulnerable (lines 143-145)

7.  It faded on the crowing of the cock.  (line 151)

8.  Upon my life,

This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him. (lines 171 - 172)

We meet Claudius, who is running the affairs of state.  What do you think of him?  

We meet Hamlet, who is dressed in black and in mourning for his father's death.  What do you think of him?

What is Claudius's advice to Hamlet?  Is it good advice?

What is one contrast between Laertes and Hamlet?

What does Hamlet think about his mother?  (Quote the play.)

Have your group perform two of these short exchanges:

Act 1, scene 2

(Lines 118-121)

Queen:  Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet:

I pray thee, stay with us; go not to Wittenberg.

Hamlet:  I shall in all my best obey you, madam.

King:  Why, 'tis a loving and a fair reply.

(Lines 175-177)

Horatio:  My lord, I came to see your father's funeral.

Hamlet:  I pray thee, do not mock me, fellow-student;

I think it was to see my mother's wedding.

(lines 188 - 190)

Horatio:  My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.

Hamlet:  Saw!  Who?

Horatio:  My lord, the king your father.

Hamlet:  The king my father!

(Lines 224 - 233)

Hamlet:  Hold you the watch tonight?

All:  We do, my lord.

Hamlet:  Arm'd, say you?

All:  Arm'd, my lord.

Hamlet:  From top to toe?

All:  My lord, from head to foot.

Hamlet:  Then saw you not his face?

Horatio:  O yes, my lord, he wore his beaver up.

Hamlet:  What, look'd he frowningly?

Horatio:  A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.

...

Hamlet:  I would I had been there.

Decorate your folder with images from all five acts!