Imad Fiesta
Hamlet (Shakespeare's play)

did anyone read this play?  so we can talk about it :)

 

Jun 1, 2015 1:44 PM
Comments · 16
2

One of my favourites!!!! 

July 31, 2015

Shakespeare is difficult for native English speakers. If you can understand spoken English, it is enormously helpful to see them in performance (in a movie, perhaps) because

 

1) a skilled actor helps interpret the words with tone of voice and body language;

2) they were, after all, intended to be seen in performance, not read;

3) modern performances shorten them! A five-hour play becomes a two-hour movie.


I don't want to overstate this, but Shakespeare's plays have a fair amount of double-entendre and sex jokes in them. Even native English speakers don't "get" them unless the edition has notes that explain them!

Our high school English teachers was a little bit mischievous. We all had to use school editions of Hamlet which had been edited to remove Shakespeare's dirty jokes. She insisted on reading from her own (complete) edition, and when we got near the end of a scene, her line numbers would be five or six lines higher than ours because our editions had a few lines cut here and there!


July 31, 2015

Yes. I read Hamlet in English because the meaning is lost when you translate it. I love Shakespeare and I liked how he used puns, symbols etc. in Hamlet. The end of the play was disappointing but it is a tragedy so it is very normal

July 29, 2015

Hamlet is a great play, and a wonderful example of feudal politics at work. 

 

This play is also the inspiration for many childrens stories about witches. You'll often hear children in English speaking countries saying "Hubble, bubble, toil and trouble..." as they pretend to mix a spell.

July 29, 2015
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July 29, 2015
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