Test quiz about Shakespeare

Compito di Inglese – Letteratura età elisabettiana

Hamlet by W. Shakespeare

1. Write the plot of the tragedy (about 70/80 words)

2. The soliloquy can be divided into four main points:

Match the definitions with the corresponding lines.

3. Hamlet refers to the evils connected with living. List them below under three headings

4. In the soliloquy Hamlet uses metaphors. Find them out (at least 3) and explain them using your own words.

5. Explain the moral dilemma Hamlet gives voice to in the soliloquy

6. Briefly describe Hamlets character (about 40 words)

7. Identify the expression Hamlet uses to refer to life and death and insert them in the following table

8. Explain what is Hamlets moral dilemma and the pros and cons of the alternatives he is thinking about.

Act III – Scene I

Enter Hamlet

To be or not to be, that is the question:

Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them? To die, to sleep –

No more; and by a sleep to say we end

The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to; ‘tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep –

To sleep, perchance to dream, ay, theres the rub;

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause; theres the respect

That makes calamity of so long life.

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

Thoppressors wrong, the prouds man contumely,

The pangs of despised love, the laws delay,

The insolence of office and the spurns

That patient merit of thunworthy takes

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscovered country from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will,

And make us rather bear those ills we have,

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied oer with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprises of great pitch and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry.

And lose the name of action.

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