You can study Hamletuntil you are blue in the face
and you think your brain will burst.
You can sit with your motherand watch it in Russian...
or, if you have a strong stomach,with Kenneth Branagh as the eponymous hero.
You can load it onto your iPodand try to absorb it while you sleep.
But the Tragicall Truth is...that when you have finished the exam...
all that information is completely useless.
12 comments:
Well, quite. But to be honest I can't remember the last time I directly applied all the differentiation and integration rules I once knew either.
I remember going to see the Kenneth Branagh version of Hamlet when we lived in the US. We very nearly left at half time - I'd got to the point where if I saw the shot of water running over leaves one more time I thought I would scream!
And to be honest you're highly unlikely to ever need it again! The hoops we have to go through to get the relevant bits of paper!
I am not entirely sure that it is all useless. I still have on my shelves and enjoy 'Whatever happened in Hamlet' by J. Wilson Knight. I recently got the Alec Guinness audio version of 1956 from the library for a blind man I visit.
I am certain that Shakespeare would have bogged. His plays were pop culture of their day...
Useless? Shakespear / Hamlet useless? Excuse me while I choke on my toast....
Correction: the book I dimly remebered from 1959 (when I bought it) is actually 'What happens in Hamlet' by John Dover Wilson. I have now found it on my shelves and am rereading the text as well as the commentary. It pays to check more accurately!
I listened to Macbeth in my sleep (on my walkman - an 80's girl am I).
Even now, years later, I am still pretty much word perfect on Lady Macbeth's battlement speech. No use to me what so ever, but nice to know it's still there.
Oh no, it's gotta be Mel Gibson as Hamlet.....yummy! ;)
Yes, but more years than I care to mention after my O levels, I can still quote chunks from it and you never know when that might come in handy.
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind....
Obviously Shakespeare would have proof read too.
(Double checked that I didn't forget the 'r'!!)
I think that the best thing I got from studying Hamlet was a better appreciation of "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead"!
(Which latter play doesn't have integration and differentiation, but does have a rather wonderful discussion of probabilities!)
N.
Did you really sit through it in Russian? A Danish Prince speaking a Russian translation of old English words. Cool.
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