Hamlet: Act I, scene i-iii

So after I read the first three scenes in Act I of Hamlet and I have developed compassion for Prince Hamlet. I don't really know how to understand Shakespeare's writing but what I did get out of it was that after the death of Hamlets father his mother decided to marry his uncle. In my personal opinion that's kind of messed up. Even in this day of age I think that sort of stuff is wrong. It is basically like you were awaiting the death of your husband so that you could get with his brother. (wrong on SO many levels). The thing that made it even worse was that it happened in short notice, practically right after his father's death, well two months after.

When Hamlet delivers his soliloquy he describes how his uncle will never be a father to him. “Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him as if increase of appetite had grown by what it fed on; and yet, within a month- let me not think on't. Frailty, they name is woman! A little month, or ere those shoes were old with which she followed my poor father's body. ...O god! A beast, that wants discourse of reason would have mourned longer-married with my uncle; my father's brother, but no more like my father than I to Hercules.” (Act I, scene ii, lines 143-152). He describes here how his mother is all over Claudius (the uncle) and isn't showing that much remorse over her husband's recent death. I don’t know exactly how Hamlet feels but I get the gist of it. I mean seriously no man especially an uncle could replace the father you lost. I mean so far this entire play is messed up. Well not the play but the concept of Hamlet.

I have so many questions. For starters (with a little reference to Hamlet) I know Shakespeare is known for his dramatic plays but I mean they all have this weird twist to them. Like Oedipus and how he killed his father and married his mom. SO TOTALLY TWISTED!! Or Romeo & Juliet and how they both committed suicide for love. I mean seriously what is up with this pattern of drama, betrayal, and death. I wonder sometimes if Shakespeare himself went through these types of things which made him write so much about them.

Coleridge & Shelley~ Imagination & Narrative Voice Due 3/23/09

1) The power of the imagination is often exalted in Romantic poetry. In my personal opinion Kubla Khan does not celebrate imagination but cautions its indulgence. "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree" (lines 1 & 2) and "But oh! That deep romantic chasm which slanted down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover! A savage place! As holy and enchanted as e’er beneath a waning moon…" (lines 12-15). In lines 1-2 it begins to describe the imagination as a glorious place, a place in which you are free to let your mind run free. In lines 12-15 Coleridge begins to describe how that wondrous and enchanted place in your mind can be trouble. Throughout this poem Coleridge illustrates how the mind is a place of pleasure and fear. I personally think that by illustrating these things he is warning us how the imagination "really" works. I think that Coleridge is writing to those all who read his work, notifying them to be weary of letting their imagination run wild for it may be dangerous.

2) In the sonnet, "Ozymandias", there are three speakers, the narrator, the traveler, and the King (Ozymandias). The narrator has a brief role in the sonnet whereas the traveler is the main voice. As the listener the three voices in this sonnet seem to discuss different things. The narrator is first to speak and he has a line or two about his encounter with a traveler. The traveler (who I believe to be the main speaker) then goes into telling his story about how he came across a sculpture which had been destroyed. Ozymandias (The King) doesn’t "speak" in the poem but does indicate that he has a voice. He shows this voice through the words that were sculpted across the pedestal: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings, Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair". These voices seem to tell a story within a story. The narrator tells his story of how he met a traveler who told him a story of how he came across the sculpture of a King who tells a story all his own from a pedestal.