Lutz 12 AP

Hamlet 3.1 “To be...” Inner Debate / Choral Reading

I. The various voices of Hamlet – video samples.

1. Soliloquies are really inner debates. What interpretations do you glean from the

various presentations?

II. Face to face“inner debate” of Hamlet:

1. Let’s hear the inner debate.

2. What is the debate that is raging between the two voices?

III. Two groups:

  1. Decide as a group which side of the debate your lines are presenting. What is this voice? The voice of reason? Of despair? Of discretion? Etc.
  2. Determine how best to convey that voice for each line by how your group might employ pitch, tone, inflection, and stress to emphasize meaning.
  3. Groups go face to face.
  4. After having performed, are there any changes to your interpretations?
  5. Does he resolve the debate? Explain.

1: To be or not to be – that is the question:

2: Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

1: Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

And, by opposing, end them.

2:To die, to sleep –

1:No more – and by a sleep to say we end

The heartache and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to –

‘Tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished.

2: To die, to sleep –

To sleep, perchance to dream.

1:Ay, there’s the rub,

2:For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

1: When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

2:Must give us pause.

There’s the respect

That makes calamity of so long life.

1:For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

2:Th’ oppressor’s wrong,

1:The proud man’s contumely,

2:The pangs of despised love,

1:The law’s delay,

2:The insolence of office,

And the spurns

That patient merit of th’ unworthy takes

1:When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin?

2:Who would fardels bear,

1:To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

2:But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscovered country from whose bourn

1:No traveler returns,

2:Puzzles the will

1:And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

2:Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,

1:And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,

2:And enterprises of great pitch and moment

1 and 2:With this regard their currents turn awry

And lose the name of action.