Response to Course Material #4

Another month has come and gone in AP Lit and while it feels like we haven't done as much as we have in past months I know we have.

Class has been focused around one thing: Hamlet, which is why it doesn't feel like we have done as much. Reading Hamlet, discussing Hamlet, annotating Hamlet. Hamlet, Hamlet, Hamlet. To be honest, I thought being completely focused on Hamlet would be monotonous and annoying. In past English classes when we've spent a long time on one book or play I've been bored out of my mind, like in Brit Lit when we spent an excruciatingly long time on Beowulf and Frankenstein. With Hamlet, I've been interested the entire time, and while I'm not 100% sure about this, I think Ms. Holmes has been a big part of keeping my interest.

I'll be the first to admit that I am not a big Shakespeare fan, there is something about his writing that has always bothered me though I'm not sure what. I was pleasantly surprised when reading Hamlet just how much I was really enjoying it. Reading Hamlet, fun. Annotating Hamlet, not fun. That was probably the only part of Hamlet that I did not enjoy, annotating it.

One thing that I especially liked about our Hamlet unit was watching all the different versions of the play in movie form. I liked being able to see the different directors' interpretations and how each character was portrayed. Personally, I like when Gertrude and Ophelia were portrayed as intelligent, that Gertrude drank the wine knowing it was poisoned and there was a method to Ophelia's madness.  In any of my previous lit classes we've only watched one version of the play/book. It was nice to be able to compare different version and actors and come up with what I thought a movie version of the play should be like. Who played what, how they played, what was over or under acting. Did I like the movie set in modern times or more true to the original setting of the book? Did I want a crazy mega-castle or a smaller manor? Seeing the differences between the movies helped me decide what I wanted from the movie.

I really enjoyed our class' discussion of the play and movies. It was interesting to me to see how the other people in my class saw everything compared to how I saw it. I know I disagreed with many of my class mates on whether or not Polonius really cared about his children; many argued that he did not while I believed, and still believe, that he does care about them in his own way. I know Drew K. and I got into a debate over whether or not Polonius is a fool. I think that's what I really like about this play, that there is so much that can be discussed and debated but the story doesn't change.

If I had to say one thing I didn't like about all the Hamlet stuff we've been doing, it would probably be the "Tragic Balance in Hamlet" thing we had to read. I know my class ripped on the thing, how it was poorly done and that the few good ideas in it were covered up by other quoted sources and the reader's confusion. For me, I could barely tell which opinions were the author's and which were from his many quoted sources. While it was a struggle for me to follow the article, I did see what it was trying to do, show two extreme, contrasting views of the play and how they would affect how the reader sees it. The idea is good, the execution of the idea was the downfall. I think this would have been better in two separate essays, one for each view, and then have us read both. We'd still get to see how each extreme affects the reader's interpretation of the play but the ideas would come through much more clearly.

Overall this has been my favorite unit so far. All of our Hamlet discussions and movie viewings have made me excited for what's next in AP Lit. I can only hope that what is to come in AP Lit will be as exciting to me as Hamlet was.