Junior Varsity English (Prep for AP, Humanities, and Big Time University)

This a blog for Mr. James Cook's eleventh grade honors English class at Gloucester (MA) High School. Remember what Northrup Frye writes in _Fearful Symmetry_, "No one can begin to think straight unless [she or] he has a passionate desire to think and an intense joy in thinking."

Friday, April 13, 2007

youth and age

youth and age: 1.3.8, 1.3.45-48, 1.5.45-47, 2.1.25, 2.1.129, 2.2.12, 2.2.207, 2.2.306-311
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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

For Hamlet and the trifling of his favour,
Hold it a fashion and a toy in blood,
A violet in the youth of primy nature,
Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting,
The perfume and suppliance of a minute; No more.
1.3.6-10

That youth and observation copied there;
And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,
1.5.45-47

In the first quotation, Laertes is speaking to Ophelia about Hamlet. Laertes is about to go away to school and he is giving his sister Ophelia advice about Hamlet. In this quote, he is telling her that Hamlet is young, and his love for her is not going to last forever. He tells Ophelia that Hamlet's love for her will not last more then a minute, and that his youth is to blame.
This quotation is related to the motif youth and age. The quotation mentions the youth of Hamlet and how his youth is the reason for Ophelia not to trust him. This quotation reveals that youth represents a short attention span, or moving from one thing to another with in minutes.

The second quotation is when Hamlet is speaking to the ghost of his father, King Hamlet. The ghost of King Hamlet has just told Hamlet that Claudius killed him. This quotation is part of Hamlet's reaction and responce to the news. Hamlet is saying how he is going to erase everything he has learned from his youth and from books and just remember what his father has just told him.
This quotation relates to the motif because Hamlet is saying how he is going to erase everything he has learned from his youth. This reveals that even though you are young, you learn many things that you will need for the rest of your life while you are young.

Is youth looked at as a positive or negative thing in this novel? I think one thing and then I read a differnt quote with the motif and think the opposite. I am confused.

April 24, 2007 at 3:41 PM
Anonymous said...

If thou canst mutine in a matron's bones,
To flaming youth let virtue be as wax,
3.4.93-94

A very riband in the cap of youth,
Yet needful too; for youth no less becomes
The light and careless livery that it wears
Than settled age his sables and his weeds,
4.7.89-91

In youth, when I did love, did love,
Methought it was very sweet,
To contract, O, the time, for, ah, my behove,
O, methought, there was nothing meet.
5.1.63-66

In the first quotation, Hamlet is speaking to Gertrude about two brothers and how one betrayed the other and how she allowed it to happen. Then he says to flaming youth let virtrue be true as wax meaning that youth is alive and vitrue fades away just as the way as wax melts.
This quotation is realated to the motif of youth in age in that he says says how youth is alive and burning and strong and realtes that to virtue and how it fades and melts away.

The second quotation is when Claudius is talking to Laertes about how Polonious is dead. He tells him how the person who killed his father is in his youth and that is the thing to blame because youth is responsible.
This realtes to the motif of youth and age in that youthfullness is the reason many things happen and that when you are older and wiser the things wont happen that did when you were young.

The final quotation is a person in a graveyard singing a song about when he was young and foolisih and in love. He says how good he thinks it was when he was young that he was in love.
This realtes to the motif youth and age in that the person is saying how when they were young they thought love and everything was so great and how awesome it was. This was how Hamlet though of Ophelia until he went mad.

May 15, 2007 at 4:07 PM

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