Good afternoon to you all on the first day of Daylight Savings Time 2015.

Upcoming:  Quiz over Acts II and III of Hamlet on Wednesday

FRIDAY IN CLASS
There was some initial time to get started on the Act III Study Guide by answering questions 1-10 as review of material already assigned/discussed, including readers' theater segments.  We briefly set up some of the elements of the play-within-the play:  is it good drama (why/why not?); how would you expect Ophelia to react to Hamlet when she sees him at the play?  How would you expect Hamlet to act with Ophelia?

Then we watched the David Tennant version from Hamlet's advice to the players through Claudius' reaction after rising and calling for the lights.  If you were absent on Friday, make sure that you give a thorough second reading to the "play within the play,"

FOR MONDAY
First, read the rest of Act 3, Scene 2--approximately from line 300 through 432, and answer just a few more questions on the Act III Study Guide:  11-15.

Then continue reading:  Act 3, Scene 3.  You don't have to answer the questions yet,and we will proceed with Act 3, Scene 4 in class tomorrow.  (However, you can certainly feel free to finish reading the act on your own first).

RE: the Study Guide--I do not have this digitalized, so I can't link it here.  However, if you were absent, here are questions 1-15 so that you can catch up.  Answer on your own paper.

Act Three, Scene 1:
1. What do Rosencrantz and Guildenstern report to Claudius?
2. How does Claudius react when Polonius says, " . . . with devotion's visage, And pious action we do sugar o'er/ The devil himself"" (52-55)
3. What plan do Polonius, Claudius, and Ophelia not put into action?
4. What is the nature of Hamlet's soliloquy (lines 64-98)?
5. What is Hamlet's main argument against suiciide?
6. Why does Hamlet treat Ophelia as cruelly as he does?  What has changed him?
7. What thinly-veiled threat does Hamlet voice, after he becomes aware of his hidden presence?
8. At the end of the scene, what does the King decide to do with Hamlet?  (What modification does Polonius suggest?)

Scene 2
9. What qualities in Horatio cause Hamlet to enlist his assistance?
10.  What does Hamlet ask Horatio to do?
11. Summarize what happens in the play-within-a-play,.
12. Why, in line 261, does Hamlet refer to the play-within-a-play as "The Mouse-trap"?
13. What is the King's reaction to the play?
14.  In lines 375-402, to what object does Hamlet compare himself?
15.  As Hamlet goes to his mother at the end of the scene, what does he admonish himself to do?