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Shakespeare's Hamlet

Essay Topics - Autumn 2001

Dick Albert

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Share this essay on 12/7 in Small Group, and turn in your final draft to your tutor on MONDAY, 12/10.

1. Aristotle say that consistency and probability are the two most important elements in the drama. Does Shakespeare, in creating the characters in Hamlet, follow or ignore this idea? You may consider both major and minor characters.
   
   
2. Discuss one of the themes in Hamlet: revenge, honor, ambition, madness, fate and free will, belief and skepticism, deceit and spying, fathers and sons, marriage, the role of women, mortality.
   
   
3. Write an essay on the function of the soliloquies in Hamlet.
   
   
4. Write an essay on Shakespeare's use of metaphors and similes.
   
   
5. Write an essay on Shakespeare's imagery, his use of sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell.
   
   
6. Discuss the function of a particular trope, such as Shakespeare's use of the military or theatrical.
   
   
7. Discuss Shakespeare's use of figures from nature (weeds, worms, et al.) or of sickness, rot and contagion.
   
   
8. Examine how Shakespeare makes use of classical allusions.
   
   
9. Discuss Hamlet's "antic disposition." Is his madness feigned or real?
   
   
10. Write an essay on the question of Hamlet's delay in avenging his father's death.
    
    
11. Develop a thesis about Shakespeare's use of the comic in writing the tragedy Hamlet.
    
    
12. See your tutor for approval of a topic other than one of these.

The ISLS policy is that you are always welcome to select a topic different from those provided, but that you *must* clear that topic with your tutor first.