An index of key words from the first act of Hamlet aka a quick dictionary

Play- a dramatic composition or piece, a drama; a dramatic performance, as on the stage; exercise or activity for amusement or recreation; fun or jest, as opposed to seriousness; a pun; the playing, action, or conduct of a game; the manner or style of playing or of doing something; an act or instance of playing or of doing something; one's turn to play; a playing for stakes; gambling; an attempt to accomplish something, often in a manner showing craft or calculation; maneuver; an enterprise or venture; deal; action, conduct, or dealing of a specified kind: fair play; foul play; action, activity, or operation; brisk, light, or changing movement or action; elusive change or movement, as of light or colors; a space in which something, as a part of a mechanism, can move; freedom for action, or scope for activity; attention in the press or other media; coverage; an act or instance of being broadcast




Duty- something that one is expected or required to do by moral or legal obligation; the binding or obligatory force of something that is morally or legally right; moral or legal obligation; an action or task required by a person's position or occupation; the respectful and obedient conduct due a parent, superior,elder, etc.; an act or expression of respect; a task or chore that a person is expected to perform; an assigned task, occupation, or place of service; the military service required of a citizen by a country; a specific or ad valorem tax imposed by law on the import or export of goods; a payment, service, etc., imposed and enforceable by law or custom; tax: income duty; the amount of work done by an engine per unit amount of fuel consumed; the measure of effectiveness of any machine; the amount of water necessary to provide for the crop in a given area; bowel movement.




Suit- a set of clothing, armor, or the like, intended for wear together; a set of men's garments of the same color and fabric, consisting of trousers, a jacket, and sometimes a vest; a similarly matched set consisting of a skirt and jacket, and sometimes a topcoat or blouse, worn by women; any costume worn for some special activity; a business executive; the act, the process, or an instance of suing in a court of law; legal prosecution; lawsuit; one of the four sets or classes (spades, hearts, diamonds,and clubs) into which a common deck of playing cards is divided; the aggregate of cards belonging to one of these sets held in a player's hand at one time; one of various sets or classes into which less common decks of cards are divided, as lances, hammers, etc., found in certain decks formerly used or used in fortune telling; the wooing or courting of a woman; the act of making a petition or an appeal; a petition, as to a person of rank or station; a complete group of sails for a boat;


Seem- to appear to be, feel, do, etc.; to appear to one's own senses, mind, observation, judgment,etc.; to appear to exist; to appear to be true, probable, or evident:; to give the outward appearance of being or to pretend to be




Is- 3rd person singular present indicative of be.




Speak- to utter words or articulate sounds with the ordinary voice; talk; to communicate vocally; mention; to converse; to deliver an address, discourse, etc.; to make a statement in written or printed words; to communicate, signify, or disclose by any means; convey significance; to produce sounds or audible sequences of individual or concatenated sounds of a language, especially through phonation, amplification, and resonance, and through any of a variety of articulatory processes; to express data or other information audibly by means of an audio response unit; to emit a sound, as a musical instrument; make a noise or report; to bark when ordered; to bay on finding a scent.



State- the condition of a person or thing, as with respect to circumstances or attributes; the condition of matter with respect to structure, form, constitution, phase, or the like; status, rank, or position in life; station; the style of living befitting a person of wealth and high rank:; a particular condition of mind or feeling; an abnormally tense, nervous, or perturbed condition; a politically unified people occupying a definite territory; nation; the territory, or one of the territories, of a government; any of the bodies politic which together make up a federal union; the body politic as organized for civil rule and government; the operations or activities of a central civil government



Nature- the material world, especially as surrounding humankind and existing independently of human activities; the natural world as it exists without human beings or civilization; the elements of the natural world, as mountains, trees, animals,or rivers; natural scenery; the universe, with all its phenomena; the sum total of the forces at work throughout the universe; reality, as distinguished from any effect of art; the particular combination of qualities belonging to a person,animal, thing, or class by birth, origin, or constitution; native or inherent character; the instincts or inherent tendencies directing conduct; character, kind, or sort; characteristic disposition; temperament



Reason- a basis or cause, as for some belief, action, fact, event, etc; a statement presented in justification or explanation of a belief or action; the mental powers concerned with forming conclusions,judgments, or inferences; sound judgment; good sense; normal or sound powers of mind; sanity; a premise of an argument; the faculty or power of acquiring intellectual knowledge,either by direct understanding of first principles or by argument.



Silence- absence of any sound or noise; stillness;the state or fact of being silent; muteness; absence or omission of mention, comment, or expressed concern; the state of being forgotten; oblivion; concealment; secrecy.



Tongue- the usually movable organ in the floor of the mouth in humans and most vertebrates, functioning in eating, in tasting,and, in humans, in speaking; an analogous organ in invertebrate animals; the tongue of an animal, as an ox, beef, or sheep, used for food,often prepared by smoking or pickling; the human tongue as the organ of speech; the faculty or power of speech; speech or talk, especially mere glib or empty talk; manner or character of speech; the language of a particular people, region, or nation; a dialect;  a people or nation distinguished by its language; tongues, speech, often incomprehensible, typically uttered during moments of religious ecstasy



Ear- the organ of hearing and equilibrium in vertebrates, in humans consisting of an external ear that gathers sound vibrations, a middle ear in which the vibrations resonate against the tympanic membrane, and a fluid-filled internal ear that maintains balance and that conducts the tympanic vibrations to the auditory nerve, which transmits them as impulses to the brain; the external ear alone; the sense of hearing:; keen or sensitive perception of the differences of sound,especially sensitiveness to the quality and correctness of musical sounds: an ear for music; attention; heed








PS I'm sorry Mrs. Clinch all of the snow distracted me and senior year is so tiring and I have a job and I'm in a very committed over-a-year-long relationship and I get distracted easily, so I forget about my blogs and you should pity me and not give me too bad of a grade please

PPS I'm also sorry for running out of ideas to blog on and for rambling so much, but this blog might actually be useful for future blogs on Hamlet so yes.

I Thought I was Not Alone, and I was right because everyone else is blogging now too

I Thought I Was Not Alone by Walt Whitman
I thought I was not alone, walking here by the shore,
But the one I thought was with me, as now I walk by the shore,
As I lean and look through the glimmering light--that one has utterly
disappeared,
And those appear that perplex me.


Okay so I just really have a thing for Walt Whitman. Whether that is because of his wonderful poetry that I am very in love with, or his wonderful granddaughter who I equally adore ( May Whitman (the actress (her?))), or his wonderful life story that makes me very happy (at least what I know of his life), it does not really matter because he is the only poet that I ever want to blog on and the AP board can just deal with that and maybe they might even throw some of his poems in on the test. Or maybe the entire test might just consist of Walt's poems (look at me calling him by his first name like we are old friends (I wish we were old friends, or new friends)). Is he even that AP lit worthy? Is googling 'Walt Whitman love poetry' for every blog really making me a good AP lit student? Is it good to ask so many rhetorical questions to the higher powers of AP Litland? I do not know, but honestly probably not. Anyhow, there is a poem upon this blog that needs to be analyzed! So here we go (epic music playing in the background)! *Movie commentator voice* In a world where only Walt Whitman poetry exists and it all needs to be analyzed lives a girl who is having too much distracted fun. Okay the poem yes the poem.

The whole poem gives off a very confused, sort of saddened tone, making me question why this was on a love poetry website. The most important part of this very very short five line poem seems to be the "by the shore" line since it is repeated twice in this short poem. "Shore" can be defined as: the land along the edge of a sea, lake, broad river, or other water formation; some particular country; land, as opposed to sea or water; the space between the ordinary high-water and low-water mark; or of, pertaining to, or located on land, especially land along the edge of a body of water. So there does not appear to be really any double meaning in this repetition, he was probably just honestly writing about walking along the beach. Beaches, however, have some connotations that come to mind like romance, renewal, or even disaster. So this might be a long winded connection to romance and disaster.

The "one" that the speaker thought was accompanying him along this relaxing walk along the beach may symbolize a lover that has recently left/betrayed him. It seems as though the speaker was relying on this person and then they left without a trace. The fact that this person has "utterly disappeared" leaves a feeling of bewilderment, surprise, disappointment, and maybe even a little dash of anger. It is totally reasonable for the speaker to be feeling all of these things because his loved one has just left him, out of the blue, seeming to have left no trace as to where he has gone except for a "glimmering light" from where he evaporated. Maybe this lover was in fact water that has now turned into steam in the air and that is why the light is glimmering because there is a bunch of water particles floating around in the air, but probably not.

The line "And those appear that perplex me" really perplexes me honestly. What are "those"? Are they people? Are they the water particles? Are they sharks and little fishes in the water? It's probably just other people (although it would be more fun if it were sharks and little fishes with little fish faces). These people probably feel foreign and unwelcome to the speaker because he has lost his rock. The speaker has just been left and now all of these people are just appearing in front of him. Like that's rude and they should leave him alone to mourn his heart in peace!

Polonius AKA Double Agent?

So I had a pretty interesting thought while we were watching the over dramatized movie version of Hamlet (who looks way too old to be playing Hammy, or maybe hes the perfect age, no idea at this time) with the sub that one day... Polonius is King Claudius's right hand man, right? And King Traitor-Face Claudius seems to kind of hate (or maybe envy or maybe even care for) Hamlet right? So, what if Polonius says all of those mean things to Ophelia and makes her break up with Hammy because Claudius told him to? Claudius could be trying to weaken Hamlet or maybe anger him? Like he might be afraid that Hammy is going to come after the throne so he wants to take away what he loves most. Or he might even be trying to protect Hamlet for some convoluted, unseen reason. Interestingly, there is no evidence of how Polonius treats Ophelia in a normal, non slut shaming situation. Really we never have the chance to see the two interact before he calls her a dirty, shameful, nearly pregnant whore. So maybe that was completely out of character (although his other actions make it seem like it was not too far out of character) and that is one of the reasons why Ophelia was so phased and affected by his outrageous speech (or maybe just because her father called her a whore and banned her from talking to her lover). Another interesting thing in this weird, horrid situation is that when Ophelia tells her father about Hamlet's crazed look and arm grabbing, he immediately is like 'oh gosh well he must love you and in that case we must go and tell the king right now at this moment without further delay'. This shows that his number one priority is the king and letting the king in on everything that is going on with Hamlet, supporting the double agent idea, and also it shows how he instantly changed his mind and said that they did love each other. If your belief can be changed that quickly then it makes it seem like it was kind of wishy washy in the first place. Polonius does not seem like the kind of man that would quickly change his own beliefs and opinions (he seems more like the stubborn, conservative, no change is good change kind of guy really), so this quick change seems pretty fishy to me. Really, I just do not like Polonius (in fact I really despise him, almost as much as I hated Torvald) and I may just be trying to find an excuse to call him a snivelly little liar, or maybe this idea is actually pretty solid. It seems that only time will tell..................

Turn O Libertad for clever titles are not easy

Turn O Libertad by Walt Whitman

Turn O Libertad, for the war is over,

From it and all henceforth expanding, doubting no more, resolute,

sweeping the world,

Turn from lands retrospective recording proofs of the past,

From the singers that sing the trailing glories of the past,

From the chants of the feudal world, the triumphs of kings,

slavery, caste,

Turn to the world, the triumphs reserv’d and to come—give up that

backward world,

Leave to the singers of hitherto, give them the trailing past,

But what remains, remains for singers for you, wars to come are

for you;

(Lo! how the wars of the past have duly inured to you, and the

wars

of the present also inure;)

Then turn, and be not alarm’d O Libertad—turn your undying face,

To where the future, greater than all the past,

Is swiftly, surely preparing for you.

So firstly, I really love this poem. It just feels so sweet and almost rejoiceful to me. It's as if Walt and his romantic companion have finally conquered some hurdle to be able to be together. Knowing what I know about Walt, I am hypothesizing that he had just gotten his boy to be okay with the idea of being gay, so now all of the inner war is over and stuff like that. I might be completely wrong, but that is just what came to mind for me the first couple of times that I read it. Now, being a good AP Lit student, I know that I have to come at this poem as if I had no background knowledge whatsoever. So, here we go: I think that knowing what "Libertad" means /is is very very important to be able to understand this poem properly. After doing some defining, I have found a lot of definitions for this word, which is Spanish in origin. So here they are: an act of undue intimacy, a leave granted to a sailor, Liberty, freedom, independence, release, looseness, the condition of being free, the power to act or speak or think without externally imposed restraints, freedom of choice, immunity from an obligation or duty. Honestly, I think that all of these fit this poem very well, so nice job Walt. However, none of them really make sense if it is meant to be a person who is the Libertad, so it might be that another, yet to be discovered, translation is something like Libertarian. Either way, looking back at those definitions, they all make sense. 'An act of undue intimacy' fits if this is really about Walt or the speaker loving the Libertad unconditionally while the Libertad is still worried about appearances. 'A leave granted to a sailor' is almost like this man has finally been freed of his duty, so now he may be with the speaker. All of the freedom, independence, release, and the rest of the definitions are pretty obvious. So on to a different point! Looking at the layout of the poem, assuming I found the correct layout, the first line is indented and then much shorter than the next. This is interesting to me because I feel like it might be just the summation of the whole poem, like if you did not feel like reading everything, just read that line and you will be good. Anyway, all of the poem is just one big sentence with a plethora of commas, a couple semicolons, and an interjection. This format gives a feeling of it all being one idea, as if it could be said in one breath. It is almost like the speaker was too excited, eager, or urgent to stop at all while he was giving the good news to his Libertad. However, I do think that the poem requires a slower reading, not too slow, but slow enough to really get a feeling off of every word. So this almost clashing of emotions and sort of requirements is an interesting mix. But I am over the necessary word count, so this will all be continued in my paper!

"Beowulf the Movie" aka "nooooo hahaha no please no stop"

              Firstly, if you have ever seen Beowulf the movie, please join me in a quick laugh followed closely by a terrified and disgusted groan: hahahahaaaaaaa ughhhhhh. Thank you. Now that we have gotten that out of our systems, we can discuss how absolutely ridiculous that movie is. In Beowulf the epic poem, Beowulf is a strong hero who has come to boast and destroy the evil in this forsaken land, but in the movie, Beowulf is a half naked liar, who seems to be strong enough, but insists on wooing Wealtheow and shutting down Unferth. I feel like there is not much to analyze in this movie, but I still need to talk about it you know? Like why did the director decide to make the movie only 2% like the book? That 2% being that Beowulf is the guy, Grendel is the first monster, and Hrothgar is the king. However, while those characters kept their names and basic roles, none of them kept their traits or characteristics. I almost don't even want to talk about Grendel. For the first half of the movie I honestly had to continuously repeat to myself  "this is not my Grendy, this is not my Grendy", because like seriously come on mr director what is going on. The first seen in this movie is seriously Grendel, who is a huge, seriously deformed, human type thing, ripping his head open with his hand/claw because his disgusting exposed eardrum is being hurt by the Danes' merrymaking. Now honestly, I feel for the guy, I understand why he did what he did. He just seemed like a big baby to me, but why did he have to be so gross? I just connected so much with Grendel from his book that now the Grendel, the way he was portrayed, it probably affected me more than most people. Okay, moving on from the worst part of the movie, lets talk about Grendel's stupid origins. Grendel is Hrothgar's son. Funny right? First of all Hrothgar's character in this movie is disappointing. He is drunk and old and fat and extremely rude to Wealtheow. Now, I may just be being forgetful, but I don't remember him being any of that in the book. Okay so Hrothgar was 'seduced' by Grendel's mother, a serpent-like form of Angelina Jolie, like she is literally Angelina Jolie with some scales. She doesn't even live in a cave guarded by fire snakes like come on mr director you missed the descent! Okay, but yeah she seduced Hrothgar so now Grendel is his son, and honestly they did a good job of showing the resemblance, especially after Grendel freaking shrank and shriveled like what. Okay yeah but that's his son so that is a big plot twist and Wealtheow is all mad about it and I thought it was very, very dumb. But then, skipping around a bit, it gets much, much worse. After Grendel dies, instead of attempting to seek revenge, Grendel's mother just makes Bewoulf spawn her another child, which I think is a total blow on female kind. Apparently all we're good at is seduction and child rearing? But yeah so Beowulf impregnates Grendel's mother, then marries Wealtheow after Hrothgar dies, then after several years this dragon starts attacking the land, but it is really Beowulf's shapeshifting-monster-son? They did not explain that very well and it was very dumb and I hated this movie. Okay also who is Beowulf's faithful brother-man supposed to be? I didn't recognize his name, which sounded like a mixture of wheat and Wealtheow. Okay so lets throw some analysis in here. Lets try to analyze the hero's journey. First Beowulf arrives, his call to action was knowing that Hrothgar needed help, but he must have skipped the refusal of the call stage. Next he was supposed to meet his mentor, I guess this could be Hrothgar since he gives him that stupid dragon horn that makes him have sex with Grendel's mother. Next hes supposed to cross the threshold, honestly I don't know what this would have been in the movie. Next he has tests, allies and enemies, This part is easy to identify, all the danes and geats are his friends, Grendel and Grendel's mother are his enemies, and facing them are his tests, one of which he failed. Like his only job was to not have sex with Grendel's mother and to kill her, but no instead he does it and then lies about it to everyone like yeah okay. Next is the approach, I guess this is the whole time until the dragon-boy-man-son comes. No actual this is probably before he goes to see Grendel's mother. So then he does that, which is the ordeal where he is supposed to face his greatest fear. Next is the reward, this would be him becoming king and getting Wealtheow. Next is the road back which is when the slave finds the stupid dragon horn. Next the resurrection, so this is when the dragon-thing comes. Then he is supposed to return with the elixir, but he fails and dies. So yeah honestly the whole movie was confusing and I just felt like I needed to share my feelings with a community that may have seen the movie because my mom did not understand why I was so distressed during the movie. So basically in my opinion, the director just wanted to make a fast paced adventure hero story that had absolutely no meaning to it, and he succeeded in that. But in the processes, he soiled a great classic, confused thousands of viewers, and severely scared a little eight year old me and made me leave the theater.

Once I was innocent, but then I experience the pain of procrastination

"Holy Thursday" (Songs of Innocence)

‘Twas on a Holy Thursday, their innocent faces clean,

The children walking two and two, in red and blue and green,

Grey headed beadles walk’d before, with wands as white as snow,

Till into the high dome of Paul's they like Thames’ waters flow.

Oh what a multitude they seem’d, these flowers of London town!

Seated in companies they sit with radiance all their own.

The hum of multitudes was there, but multitudes of lambs,

Thousands of little boys and girls raising their innocent hands.

Now like a mighty wind they raise to heaven the voice of song,

Or like harmonious thunderings the seats of Heaven among.

Beneath them sit the aged men, wise guardians of the poor;

Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your door.

"Holy Thursday" (Songs of Experience)

Is this a holy thing to see

In a rich and fruitful land,

Babes reduced to misery,

Fed with cold and usurous hand?

Is that trembling cry a song?

Can it be a song of joy?

And so many children poor?

It is a land of poverty!

And their sun does never shine,

And their fields are bleak and bare,

And their ways are filled with thorns:

It is eternal winter there.

For where'er the sun does shine,

And where'er the rain does fall,

Babes should never hunger there,

Nor poverty the mind appall.

                 For this blog I'm supposed to take a Blake poem, analyze it, and then connect it back to Grendel if possible. Luckily, I noticed a connection or a similarity between Blake's things and Grendel. Blake has this theme of Innocence vs Experience and Grendel lives that theme. He goes from the innocent baby in his cave, to the experienced one who "create[s] the world blink by blink". He goes from that innocent boy, to the one who knows violence and is appalled by it. Then he goes from that boy to the boy dazzled by poetry, having gained the knowledge of his purpose in life. Then he goes from this content boy to one filed with malice and violence, the most experienced of all of his stages. In Blake's poems, specifically the two above, there is not an obvious listed occurrence that banishes the children from the happy realm of innocence to the dark one of experience, it just seems to be a natural pathway through life. If you examine the rhyme schemes and line lengths in the above poems, it is apparent that the Innocence poem has a constant AA BB type rhyme scheme, while the Experience poem has a broken rhyme scheme that only appears occasionally. The rhyme scheme in the innocence poem represents how happy and hopeful and joyous the children are. It brings the feeling of prancing around and just being happy. Then in the experience poem, the broken rhyme scheme represents the broken hope and happiness within the people. Occasionally there is a glimpse of happiness, but for the most part it is all dreary and glum. Then looking at the actual lines' lengths, the lines that make up the innocent poem are long, with little punctuation. In contrast, the lines within the experience poem are very short, and have much more punctuation, especially in the second stanza where there is a mark every line. The short lines seem to show how little hope the experienced people are. They seem to be too tired to expand on what they are saying. The punctuation seems to signify like discipline within these people. The exclamation points and question marks create a feeling of harshness maybe even punishment. It seems as though the experienced people have been taught not to talk too much, or that they have learned through their experience that it is better for them to keep their mouths shut. Okay now connecting back to Grendel, his innocence and experience are the most evident when looking at his  encounters with the shaper and the dragon. When Grendel first saw the shaper, he had been pretty innocent up until then, but then the shaper filled him with a childlike joy that caused him to weep with joy. This is very highly contrasted with his time with the dragon. The dragon soiled Grendel's mind, telling him that he must be violent towards the humans because he is the only thing that gives them meaning. Also looking at meaning, the shaper gave him a purpose, he made him feel like he belonged in their society, even if he was the bad guy.On the other hand, the dragon took away his meaning, telling him that he was easily replaceable. This all connects back to Blake because the shaper signifies the happy, innocence of the children seen in the innocent poem above,  while the dragon signifies the dark, hopelessness of the people within the experienced poem.

554 words about Grendel

Honestly, I thought Grendel was a stellar novel and that is not just because my Grandpa's doppelganger wrote it (John Gardiner vs John Gardner heh heh). I'm not exactly sure why, but I really relate to Grendel, although that does sound a bit odd, me having a connection with a giant, furry, monster, man-baby. Well no matter how odd my connection was, I did gain a pretty impactful take away from this novel. Out of all of the ruckus and nihilism and false meaning, I found the tale to be a warning. If your life is out of balance, you are going to end u;p being ripped apart, maybe even literally by a dreamy, horse-shouldered, oven-chested evil hero. Ever since chapter five, when the dragon ruined poor little pacifist Grendel, Grendel was fighting an inner war between two very contrasting sides. When Grendel first meets the Shaper, he is presented with beauty, art, meaning, purpose, family, even friendship. The Shaper unintentionally teaches him to be calm, to only kill when he feels it is necessary, to observe from a quiet place among the trees, even to desire friendship. In my opinion, Grendel seems pretty happy during this part of his life, if we omit the part where he begs and sobs for a friend of course. Then, mystified by the Shaper's mystical ways, Grendel feels like he needs some sort of explanation; he knows that the Shaper is a liar and the wants to know why it feels so real, so he goes down to meet the dragon. One important thing that I found here is that while under the Shaper's wing, Grendel is above the people, up in the trees, but when he goes to see the dragon, Grendel must go down below the ground into a dark, dirty cave. It is almost as if he is falling down into the dark side. When he gets down there, the dragon just rips him apart. He plants this idea that nothing matters, that Grendel himself does not matter, that the world is a cycle, so what you do really does not matter because it will happen anyway. He makes Grendel feel small and insignificant. After his dumb encounter with the dragon, Grendel becomes a different monster-person-thing. Grendel decides that he might as well completely destroy the men, since it does not matter whether he does it or not, so he rips them apart. He goes into their village and, upon finding that he is invulnerable, he just kills a bunch of people. The Shaper never bred this sort of violence within Grendel, even though he did sing of wars and rivalries and such. So basically my main point of this blog is to show how contrasting these two sides of Grendel are. He's got his peaceful little, softhearted, poetry loving side. But then he also has his horridly mean, torturous, ugly, murderous side. So from all of this, I felt like Gardner was really telling his readers that they need to find a balance within their own lives, take all of the bad influences and all of the good influences and find a good, neutral central point to live in. Because if you do not, you will end up going crazy, singing songs, dancing, killing, and maybe even in the end desiring death.