Quiz guide for Introduction, Hamlet: Language and Writing (HLW)

• How did Hegel define the tragic conflict in Hamlet?
• What are some differences between Hamlet and its sources?
• What does the Ghost withold from Hamlet, and how does that omission affect Hamlet?
• The author tells us that "for most of his career, Shakespeare had been staging many of the same political issues that inform Hamlet." What are those issues, and why did they preoccupy Shakespeare?
• Of what are Shakespeare's ghosts "emblems"?
• Why does the play have so many Roman names and elements?
• Whose summary of Hamlet is described as "pithy and inaccurate"? Why?
• Hamlet is made possible by the "shattering" of "some of the certainties that had structured the worldview" for 1500 years. What were those certainties about?
• What is the irony of Hamlet being a "revenge tragedy"?
• Why has there been a tradition of women playing Hamlet?
• What does Nietzschee say about Hamlet as the Dionysiac man?
• What critical work argues that we should not consider the character of Hamlet apart from the play of Hamlet?
• In the "Writing Matters" section, what is the best advice for preparing for future papers?
• In the "Writing Matters" section, what is the author's advice for what to do about things you don't understand?
• Give an example of reading Hamlet as a play about"constraints on liberty" in the face of power.

Essay: Choose 1

• Discuss some differences between the first scene of Hamlet and the first scene of Richard III (consider focus, mood, pace, or anything else that strikes you). What do you think those differences predict about the play you are about to read.
• Discuss an imagery pattern that you noticed as you were reading Act 1.