Hamlet English 12 – “The Play’s the Thing”

20 February 2022Sajeev S, Whittall ‘22

As the short lived term two continues on its rapid pace, the students of Mr Ganley’s Literature 12 class continue on the same rapid path while they finish up their unit on Hamlet.

Hamlet, a 1609 revenge tragedy by William Shakspheare, entails the interesting but odd life of Hamlet Jr. This piece by Shakespeare, considered one of the greatest pieces of English literature, is the perfect example of an in-depth and educational piece of art. Hamlet is set in Denmark sometime between 1599-1601 and is Shakespeare’s longest play with 29,551 words; that’s a lot of lines to memorize.

Speaking of lines to memorize; arguably one of the most famous lines in English literature is set in this play and many of you might know it: “To be, or not to be, that is the question”. This famous line is said while Hamlet expresses his will to live (to be) or not live (not to be) carries a deep profundity which provides the line with its fame and power in the play.

Our most recent task in the classroom was a timed synthesis essay that was written on a specific theme selected from the five themes provided beforehand. A packet with all the Hamlet excerpts needed to write the essay was provided and the class was advised to annotate the packet, bring the packet, and USE THE PACKET.

Those who forgot to annotate or thought they didn’t need to, suffered the consequences when our marks were returned. Previous to this ,another practice synthesis was written and the class did so-so. However to my knowledge the class did quite well on this timed synthesis. When Mark L, Privett ‘22 was asked how he would perform his response was a mere “Don’t worry, I got it, it’s all up here” as he pointed to his head with a blank unannotated front page.

Nonetheless, the students of Mr Ganley’s Literature 12 class are quite notably known for their absolutely remarkable brains. Vincent Y, Whitall ‘22 often mentions how the class is “light work” due to the outstanding teaching from Mr Ganley. The students of Literature 12 and I don’t know how to thank Mr Ganley enough as he’s educated us on this beautiful piece of literature that some would call art.

And now, “I could be bounded in a nut shell and count myself a king of infinite space.” That idea is very comforting in the middle of evening prep. 😉

Sajeev S, Whittall ‘22

Where Students Choose To Be