Having listened to and recited the famous soliloquy, what discovery did you make about the speech? What did you learn about the process of memorization?
Four Replies
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Mary T.
Hamlet's Soliloquy • Posted 4 months, 3 weeks ago. #The speech itself is full of phrases and words that were difficult to memorize, but in the end, with enough practice, the simple recitation of random vocabulary proved just that - simple. However, without understanding the entire premise of the speech itself, the memorization stage remains impossible. When I studied the soliloquy, I noticed that not only did Hamlet reference suicide, but also several other faults - "the oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, the pangs of despised love, the law's delay, the insolence of office, and the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes." Each of these represents an injustice against Hamlet or against his conflicted morals. Not only does he speak about facing his obstacles and supposed craziness, but he deals with the stresses of injustice, including estranged love and improper or inactive government. The process of memorization, however, was not completed all at once for me. Without breaking the 35 lines into manageable chunks and pieces, the words did not match up in my mind. However, the unfortunate aspect of doing this is that the meaning of the piece becomes lost. With the memorization piece by piece, the soliloquy loses its "flow," and each chunk seems to have a different meaning than the next. Thus, Hamlet's speech is both simple yet complicated.
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Stephanie S.
Hamlet's Soliloquy • Posted 4 months, 3 weeks ago. #
At the beginning I was not looking forward to memorizing Hamlet's soliloquy, but it was not too bad. Once the words started to sink in my little brain, I was in awe. Why in the world does this man think like this!! "To die, to sleep", how sad :( To me this soliloquy was a bit out of the ordinary with the old English and big words. I realized that through out that lengthy monologue Hamlet was only trying to express his feelings. After that I was not memorizing random words, but reading a story.
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maci r.
To Be or Not To Be • Posted 4 months, 2 weeks ago. #
When I first heard about this assingment, I did not want to do it because I did not think I would get anything out of memorizing an insanely long passage, but I was wrong. Having to memorize and recite this passage helped me to gain a better understanding of Hamlet's point of view and it also helped me to decipher the figurative language that Shakespeare used in the soliloquy. Overall, I think that memorizing this excerpt was beneficial to my understanding of the passage and I am glad we had this assingment.
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Patricia A.
Hamlet's Soliloquy • Posted 4 months, 2 weeks ago. #
After reciting Hamlet's soliloquy, I learned that simply memorizing the speech for the sole purpose of recitation was more detrimental than beneficial in the long run. Until now, the words of Hamlet's soliloquy meant little to me. As was the case with most people, the process of memorization created a greater challenge than had been anticipated. If discovering the meaning of the speech had been my original purpose rather than attempting to memorize it with little knowledge of the content, the process of memorization would have come naturally. I now realize that having a complete understanding of the speech would have drastically reversed the difficulty in reciting it. Attempting to memorize the speech in small portions was not in the least bit helpful. Engaging in such a useless strategy only allowed the speech to lose its meaning as well as its significance. Had I only grasped the meaning of Hamlet's soliloquy sooner, I would have been alleviated from the process of tedious memorization. In addition to discovering a more efficient process of memorization, I realized that Hamlet's soliloquy was referring to more than just suicide. Hamlet faced other issues such as abuse from the government and others that forced him to view life with such a bleak outlook. With that being said, the process of memorizing and reciting Hamlet's soliloquy could have been easily mastered by simply taking a different approach.
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