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Sureley the major theme of the play is death and all other themes are subordiate to it? The role of good and evil, love etc. in our lives are all examined in light of the "the undiscovered country" "from which no traveller returns"? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 143.252.80.100 ( talk) 09:38, 13 May 2007 (UTC).
No, revenge only sets the stage for the theme of death. But at least given that the two most famous scenes in the play (3.1 -"to be or not to be"; and 5.1 "alas poor yorik") are explicitly about death, not to mention death at all in the themes of the play is outrageous 143.252.80.100 10:38, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
What we need is a themes section, with cited summaries of different ideas in the play. Wrad 15:59, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
I could do a theme summary, with an example or two of each, drawn from the playtext. There are many themes / motifs/ subthemes in the play, and they interact, or intertwine. Death, revenge, madness, parent-child, love-hate, crime & justice, etc. Trying to identify the "one" theme is not going to work. The 'umbrella' theme is "Putting On A Show." That's the only theme that encompasses every single thing in the play. But of course saying the play is about Putting On A Show is not actually informative. Where would the theme section need to be placed on the page? JeffJo 21:52, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
Go ahead, although just doing it from the playtext is pretty much OR. We will need sources. As for where to put it, take a look at the Shakespeare project outline. Wrad 22:24, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
Okay, theme section after synopsis. Original research, well, just quoting the playtext isn't very original. What I had in mind, basically, was to mention a theme, and then give one or two brief quotes from the play, simply to prove the theme is there. Then maybe a sentence, possibly two sentences, indicating the significance of the theme to the play overall. For that, the play is its own source. For example - > ||| The Revenge theme: Ghost to Hamlet, "So art thou (bound) to revenge"; Laertes to Claudius, "I'll be revenged most throughly for my father." Revenge is Hamlet's motive against Claudius, and also revenge is the motive turned against Hamlet. The concept of revenge permeates the play, and compels major events. ||| < - I could do that kind of thing, and about that brief, for each of the top half dozen or so themes. Is that what's needed? JeffJo 22:48, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
Might be a good start. Wrad 23:01, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
There are plenty of sources out there covering themes in Hamlet, especially revenge. While quoting from the play is good, these sections absolutely must have some of these sources. That's why I said to go ahead and start, as these sections will definitely have quotes from the play, but to beware WP:Original Research. Be sure to look over the scholarly discussion on the subject as well. With Shakespeare, especially, people can write themes about rosemary. Why, even in Hamlet, some write entire papers about the types of flowers Ophelia gives to everyone in act 4. Others explore the theme of ears in Hamlet, as that is where the King receives his poison, etc. Wrad 18:40, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
Other themes which aren't mentioned in the article yet, but which are everywhere in the scholarly world, are Catholicism, Protestantism, Humanism, and Counter-Humanism. Wrad 05:51, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
Actually, I could name several lines which cover both. It is stated in the play, quite clearly in a few places. It seems to me though, that this discussion might do better at the Shakes. proj. page. We still haven't hammered out how play pages should be organized, though we've made a good start. We need to be able to delineate what will be discussed in themes and what in contexts, and what will be a mix of the two. It's tricky, humanism may be a historical context, but so is revenge. Scholars pour over Elizabethan history like crazy trying to find out the context of it in Hamlet. The same goes for death, and any other theme. It is impossible to separate context from anything, in today's literary world. Wrad 18:40, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
What I'm saying is that there is no meaning without context. Even if you read the play and interpret it, you are bringing your context to it. A discussion of the revenge theme would be best if it discussed the context. For Humanism, Hamlet says that man is like an angel and a God, referring to a general humanist theme of his time. For revenge, many scholars have found that Hamlet would have been justified for his revenge, but at the same time not. He would have been keeping the older laws of Chivalry, but breaking the newer laws of the land. This may contribute to his delay. Context is everywhere. In fact, it is so pervasive that we don't even notice it most of the time. I guess basically I'm just saying that the themes should include historical context and scholarly commentary to enhance them. If you take a look at some of the other Shakespeare plays, they have OR tags all over them because they don't cite their sources or involve scholarly opinion. Wrad 03:48, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
Sounds good, I'd like to see what you intend as well, maybe we can meet in the middle somewhere. Wrad 04:16, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
Here's a part of what may later be part of a section on Catholicism in Hamlet. Refs are excluded since this is a talk page.
“ | Catholic doctrines manifest themselves all over the play, including the discussion over the manner of Ophelia’s burial in Act 5. The question in this scene is of whether it is right for Ophelia to have a Christian burial, since those who commit suicide are guilty of their own murder in the doctrines of the church. As the debate continues between the two clowns, it becomes a question of whether her drowning was suicide or not. Shakespeare never fully answers this question, but presents both sides: 1) that she did not act to stop the drowning and therefore committed suicide of her own will, or 2) that she was mad and did not know the danger and thus was killed by the water, innocently.
The burial of Ophelia reveals more of the religious doctrines in question through the Priest overseeing the funeral. Scholars have carefully outlined the “maimed rites” (as Hamlet calls them) carried out by the Priest. Many things are missing in her funeral that would normally make up a Christian burial. Laertes asks, “What ceremony else?” The priest answers that since her death was questionable, they will not give her the full funeral, although they will allow her “maiden strewments,” or flowers which were thrown into her grave. In cases of suicide, sharp rocks, rather than flowers, were thrown in. The difficulties in this deeply religious moment reflect much of the religious debate of the time. |
” |
Could you give an example of what you want to do? Again, maybe we can meet in the middle somewhere. Wrad 05:00, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm sorry you feel that way. Everything I added, though, comes from a peer-reviewed, scholarly journal. This is the best any article can ask for. The Church of England is not really involved in a play dealing with the Catholic Denmark. In the play, Act 5, Scene 1, Lines 3558-3566, the priest over the funeral actually talks directly about what would have been done if it were a suicide. I don't really mind what you've said, I just want to meet in the middle somewhere on this, and would love to see an example of what you have in mind about themes so we can work this out. The above remains my example of what I'd like to do, as you asked for. Wrad 14:58, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
Again, this comes from an academic, peer reviewed source. The article I'm using is <<Quinlan, Maurice J. "Shakespeare and the Catholic Burial Services." Shakespeare Quarterly 5.3 (1954): 303-6.>>. There are also several other Catholic things in the play (as well as Protestant) that I could have included, but I didn't because it was just an example. I probably was a bit off saying Denmark was Catholic in my last post, as the play shows it having a mix of Catholic and Protestant themes, which should both be addressed in the article. However, I was trying to counteract the idea that the Church of England was involved in the play. I would also like to point out that the example I gave makes no such statement that Denmark is completely Catholic.
Paul, Why do you say that my statement is too ambiguous? What can I add to improve it? Perhaps I could outline exactly what the "maimed rights" were. The article I'm using goes into great detail on exactly what a Catholic funeral had in those days, and exactly what was missing from Ophelia's. I could also add information on the Catholicism of Hamlet's father, the Purgatory imagery in the play, and the Catholic source of the line where Horatio invokes angels to bring Hamlet to his rest. Again, the above was just an example. Anything I would add to the article would be more developed (and have sources). Wrad 15:47, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
To summarise what has been a rather lengthy debate: would there not be a sense, then, in which any vaguely independent theme summary is "original research"? Themes and charachters, contra JeffJo are very different animals - charachters being explictly defined by the author as existing in the text, whilst the themes ARE BROUGHT TO THE TEXT BY THE READER. To say that a text is 'about', say, revenge, is to interpret it through a certain linguistic model (which, incidently, you may have constructed yourself from existing ideas in order make sense of the text, or may have had handed down to you). This linguistic model excludes some elements of the text and priviliges others. But there is no sense in which a theme qua linguistic model could be said to exist 'objectively'(couldn't think of a better word), as a charachter could be said to. The best the Wiki summary could hope to do is to gather together the themes that we all seem to bring to play (pretty uncontroversially: revenge, death etc.)with the caveat that these are by no means universal themes and with the required referencing. Another route, and more in the spirit of Wiki (after all not everyone thinks the same...), is to highlight where it is possible to bring conflicting models to the same parts of the play. (UTC)
User:Wireless99
16:47, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
If you rethink the story in modern terms, Hamlet is actually a hero for being hesitant to take another man's life. That's why the play Hamlet doesn't fit in the revenge genre of Shakespeare's plays. User:bardofcornish
Yes, but "in modern times" with heros two a penny, I prefer to think of him as a coward existenstially unsure of himself amidst a "sea of troubles". User:Wireless99 17:14, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree with JeffJo...partially, because themes are "fundementall or universal ideas", so how do you decide if an idea is fundamentall or universal? I think we should start a theme summary as a list. We've already been discussing different themes, so people can add those and we can edit it to filter out the bias. Each item on the list needs to be able to be verified as "fundamental or universall" so themes coming from a reliable source would be optimall, not wholy originall research. bardofcornish
There...I just started a section.Very rough, though. I've looked at Wrad's page, and it definately could be used.It needs to be sourced, though. Even if the play is your source, it needs to be sourced just like any other book. We may want to include symbols and more anylitical sections as well. bardofcornish 22:20, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
Again, as I've already pointed out, doing a theme summary of 'Hamlet' is really no different from doing a character list. The themes of 'Hamlet' are in 'Hamlet,' the same as the characters of 'Hamlet' are in 'Hamlet.' It isn't complicated, the way some people try to make it. And there is no "original research" in simply doing a theme summary, any more than there is "original research" in doing a character list. Are you going to look at some book by Harold Bloom to find out whether Polonius is in the play, because otherwise you can't tell? That would be nonsense, of course. The same is true of the themes of the play. The "source" for all the themes of 'Hamlet' is "Hamlet." That is a fact. And I have no idea where people are getting their strange and eccentric ideas of what a "theme" is. Some people who have posted here need to go to Merriam-Webster online, and look up the word "theme." A theme is a motif, a recurring idea. That is factually what a "theme" is - look it up. A final point, is it too much to ask that words should be spelled correctly in the article? Look at what's there now -- "soliloquy" is misspelled; "cemetery" is misspelled. It looks terrible, and it's embarrassing. Please, before you post something, just copy the text over to a text editor, and run a spelling check on it, since there doesn't seem to be a spell checker here. It's great that people want to contribute, but passers-by who see the article with all those misspelled words are going to sneer and say that Wikipedia is crap. Nobody wants that. JeffJo 14:54, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
Why was the original theme summary deleted? I suppose that section could be thought of as a starter to the more broader literary critisism section, but please explain why. Bardofcornish 22:10, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
Andy,
you removed a perfectly legitimate link I put on the Hamlet page.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Marklynchster ( talk • contribs)
The plot summary for this article is, quite frankly, terrible. It simultaneously explains too much and not enough and assumes you're already familiar with scenes that you probably aren't familiar with if you're bothering to read the plot summary in the first place. The whole thing ought to be rendered in under 1,000 words, rather than the 1,562 it is now. Further, I see little reason why any reference ought to be made in the plot summary to "famous lines" and "such-and-such soliloquy" and other such nonsense. If these scenes/lines have their own articles, they ought to be linked to via a parenthetical link, but that's it. I mean, I'd hardly expect a plot summary of The Matrix to say something like, "And then Neo and Trinity walked into the lobby of the building and the famous Lobby Shoot-Out Scene began." It sounds bad and does nothing to enhance a reader's understanding of the plot which is, after all, exactly what the plot summary is supposed to do. RobertM525 10:50, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
I think we might want to delete the current plot summary. But I don't get the tag because it says- " focus on discussing the work rather than simply reiterating the plot." The plot summary needs to be just that--a plot summary. I'd be willing to write one under 1,000 words. User:bardofcornish
The soliloquy analisys ect. needs to be moved to another part of the arcticle, not necissarilly to another article entirely.
The play article does not have a "plot summary" it has a SYNOPSIS. A "synopsis" is a description of what happens in a play. That is what the word means. Objecting to the synopsis because it describes what happens in the play is absolutely ridiculous. It's a complaint that the synopsis is a synopsis. Gee, no kidding. Also, the synopsis for 'Hamlet' is inevitably going to be long, because 'Hamlet' itself is a long play. It is Shakespeare's longest play, as pointed out at the top of the article, itself. People need to face reality, if the 'Hamlet' article is going to be respectable. Any respectable synopsis for 'Hamlet' is simply going to be long, that's all. Also, the mentions of famous lines and soliloquys is so that people will know where to find them in the play. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, and in fact, it is very highly desirable. It's called "being a useful reference" which is what Wikipedia is supposed to be. JeffJo 15:14, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
I apoligize, JeffJo, it is a synopsis, not a plot summary. At any rate, that section is obviously getting better the direction it's going!! Bardofcornish 22:06, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
Should the synopsis be plagiarized from here? Brandon Christopher 22:33, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
That looks like a great site, but the synopsis looks a bit to long. I know that other editors may disagree, but if you look at the template for Shakespeare play articles (which I believe in following) it says that the synopsis should be, if I remember correctly, 600-900 words. Bardofcornish 13:12, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
Consensus still has not been reached on this issue. Is the plot summary too long or does the play merit a longer synopsis? Should analysis and commentary (i.e. "this is a famous scene...") be mixed in with the plot elements, or should it be strictly a plot description with no analysis or commentary? Thoughts?
![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Sureley the major theme of the play is death and all other themes are subordiate to it? The role of good and evil, love etc. in our lives are all examined in light of the "the undiscovered country" "from which no traveller returns"? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 143.252.80.100 ( talk) 09:38, 13 May 2007 (UTC).
No, revenge only sets the stage for the theme of death. But at least given that the two most famous scenes in the play (3.1 -"to be or not to be"; and 5.1 "alas poor yorik") are explicitly about death, not to mention death at all in the themes of the play is outrageous 143.252.80.100 10:38, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
What we need is a themes section, with cited summaries of different ideas in the play. Wrad 15:59, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
I could do a theme summary, with an example or two of each, drawn from the playtext. There are many themes / motifs/ subthemes in the play, and they interact, or intertwine. Death, revenge, madness, parent-child, love-hate, crime & justice, etc. Trying to identify the "one" theme is not going to work. The 'umbrella' theme is "Putting On A Show." That's the only theme that encompasses every single thing in the play. But of course saying the play is about Putting On A Show is not actually informative. Where would the theme section need to be placed on the page? JeffJo 21:52, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
Go ahead, although just doing it from the playtext is pretty much OR. We will need sources. As for where to put it, take a look at the Shakespeare project outline. Wrad 22:24, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
Okay, theme section after synopsis. Original research, well, just quoting the playtext isn't very original. What I had in mind, basically, was to mention a theme, and then give one or two brief quotes from the play, simply to prove the theme is there. Then maybe a sentence, possibly two sentences, indicating the significance of the theme to the play overall. For that, the play is its own source. For example - > ||| The Revenge theme: Ghost to Hamlet, "So art thou (bound) to revenge"; Laertes to Claudius, "I'll be revenged most throughly for my father." Revenge is Hamlet's motive against Claudius, and also revenge is the motive turned against Hamlet. The concept of revenge permeates the play, and compels major events. ||| < - I could do that kind of thing, and about that brief, for each of the top half dozen or so themes. Is that what's needed? JeffJo 22:48, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
Might be a good start. Wrad 23:01, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
There are plenty of sources out there covering themes in Hamlet, especially revenge. While quoting from the play is good, these sections absolutely must have some of these sources. That's why I said to go ahead and start, as these sections will definitely have quotes from the play, but to beware WP:Original Research. Be sure to look over the scholarly discussion on the subject as well. With Shakespeare, especially, people can write themes about rosemary. Why, even in Hamlet, some write entire papers about the types of flowers Ophelia gives to everyone in act 4. Others explore the theme of ears in Hamlet, as that is where the King receives his poison, etc. Wrad 18:40, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
Other themes which aren't mentioned in the article yet, but which are everywhere in the scholarly world, are Catholicism, Protestantism, Humanism, and Counter-Humanism. Wrad 05:51, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
Actually, I could name several lines which cover both. It is stated in the play, quite clearly in a few places. It seems to me though, that this discussion might do better at the Shakes. proj. page. We still haven't hammered out how play pages should be organized, though we've made a good start. We need to be able to delineate what will be discussed in themes and what in contexts, and what will be a mix of the two. It's tricky, humanism may be a historical context, but so is revenge. Scholars pour over Elizabethan history like crazy trying to find out the context of it in Hamlet. The same goes for death, and any other theme. It is impossible to separate context from anything, in today's literary world. Wrad 18:40, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
What I'm saying is that there is no meaning without context. Even if you read the play and interpret it, you are bringing your context to it. A discussion of the revenge theme would be best if it discussed the context. For Humanism, Hamlet says that man is like an angel and a God, referring to a general humanist theme of his time. For revenge, many scholars have found that Hamlet would have been justified for his revenge, but at the same time not. He would have been keeping the older laws of Chivalry, but breaking the newer laws of the land. This may contribute to his delay. Context is everywhere. In fact, it is so pervasive that we don't even notice it most of the time. I guess basically I'm just saying that the themes should include historical context and scholarly commentary to enhance them. If you take a look at some of the other Shakespeare plays, they have OR tags all over them because they don't cite their sources or involve scholarly opinion. Wrad 03:48, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
Sounds good, I'd like to see what you intend as well, maybe we can meet in the middle somewhere. Wrad 04:16, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
Here's a part of what may later be part of a section on Catholicism in Hamlet. Refs are excluded since this is a talk page.
“ | Catholic doctrines manifest themselves all over the play, including the discussion over the manner of Ophelia’s burial in Act 5. The question in this scene is of whether it is right for Ophelia to have a Christian burial, since those who commit suicide are guilty of their own murder in the doctrines of the church. As the debate continues between the two clowns, it becomes a question of whether her drowning was suicide or not. Shakespeare never fully answers this question, but presents both sides: 1) that she did not act to stop the drowning and therefore committed suicide of her own will, or 2) that she was mad and did not know the danger and thus was killed by the water, innocently.
The burial of Ophelia reveals more of the religious doctrines in question through the Priest overseeing the funeral. Scholars have carefully outlined the “maimed rites” (as Hamlet calls them) carried out by the Priest. Many things are missing in her funeral that would normally make up a Christian burial. Laertes asks, “What ceremony else?” The priest answers that since her death was questionable, they will not give her the full funeral, although they will allow her “maiden strewments,” or flowers which were thrown into her grave. In cases of suicide, sharp rocks, rather than flowers, were thrown in. The difficulties in this deeply religious moment reflect much of the religious debate of the time. |
” |
Could you give an example of what you want to do? Again, maybe we can meet in the middle somewhere. Wrad 05:00, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm sorry you feel that way. Everything I added, though, comes from a peer-reviewed, scholarly journal. This is the best any article can ask for. The Church of England is not really involved in a play dealing with the Catholic Denmark. In the play, Act 5, Scene 1, Lines 3558-3566, the priest over the funeral actually talks directly about what would have been done if it were a suicide. I don't really mind what you've said, I just want to meet in the middle somewhere on this, and would love to see an example of what you have in mind about themes so we can work this out. The above remains my example of what I'd like to do, as you asked for. Wrad 14:58, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
Again, this comes from an academic, peer reviewed source. The article I'm using is <<Quinlan, Maurice J. "Shakespeare and the Catholic Burial Services." Shakespeare Quarterly 5.3 (1954): 303-6.>>. There are also several other Catholic things in the play (as well as Protestant) that I could have included, but I didn't because it was just an example. I probably was a bit off saying Denmark was Catholic in my last post, as the play shows it having a mix of Catholic and Protestant themes, which should both be addressed in the article. However, I was trying to counteract the idea that the Church of England was involved in the play. I would also like to point out that the example I gave makes no such statement that Denmark is completely Catholic.
Paul, Why do you say that my statement is too ambiguous? What can I add to improve it? Perhaps I could outline exactly what the "maimed rights" were. The article I'm using goes into great detail on exactly what a Catholic funeral had in those days, and exactly what was missing from Ophelia's. I could also add information on the Catholicism of Hamlet's father, the Purgatory imagery in the play, and the Catholic source of the line where Horatio invokes angels to bring Hamlet to his rest. Again, the above was just an example. Anything I would add to the article would be more developed (and have sources). Wrad 15:47, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
To summarise what has been a rather lengthy debate: would there not be a sense, then, in which any vaguely independent theme summary is "original research"? Themes and charachters, contra JeffJo are very different animals - charachters being explictly defined by the author as existing in the text, whilst the themes ARE BROUGHT TO THE TEXT BY THE READER. To say that a text is 'about', say, revenge, is to interpret it through a certain linguistic model (which, incidently, you may have constructed yourself from existing ideas in order make sense of the text, or may have had handed down to you). This linguistic model excludes some elements of the text and priviliges others. But there is no sense in which a theme qua linguistic model could be said to exist 'objectively'(couldn't think of a better word), as a charachter could be said to. The best the Wiki summary could hope to do is to gather together the themes that we all seem to bring to play (pretty uncontroversially: revenge, death etc.)with the caveat that these are by no means universal themes and with the required referencing. Another route, and more in the spirit of Wiki (after all not everyone thinks the same...), is to highlight where it is possible to bring conflicting models to the same parts of the play. (UTC)
User:Wireless99
16:47, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
If you rethink the story in modern terms, Hamlet is actually a hero for being hesitant to take another man's life. That's why the play Hamlet doesn't fit in the revenge genre of Shakespeare's plays. User:bardofcornish
Yes, but "in modern times" with heros two a penny, I prefer to think of him as a coward existenstially unsure of himself amidst a "sea of troubles". User:Wireless99 17:14, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree with JeffJo...partially, because themes are "fundementall or universal ideas", so how do you decide if an idea is fundamentall or universal? I think we should start a theme summary as a list. We've already been discussing different themes, so people can add those and we can edit it to filter out the bias. Each item on the list needs to be able to be verified as "fundamental or universall" so themes coming from a reliable source would be optimall, not wholy originall research. bardofcornish
There...I just started a section.Very rough, though. I've looked at Wrad's page, and it definately could be used.It needs to be sourced, though. Even if the play is your source, it needs to be sourced just like any other book. We may want to include symbols and more anylitical sections as well. bardofcornish 22:20, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
Again, as I've already pointed out, doing a theme summary of 'Hamlet' is really no different from doing a character list. The themes of 'Hamlet' are in 'Hamlet,' the same as the characters of 'Hamlet' are in 'Hamlet.' It isn't complicated, the way some people try to make it. And there is no "original research" in simply doing a theme summary, any more than there is "original research" in doing a character list. Are you going to look at some book by Harold Bloom to find out whether Polonius is in the play, because otherwise you can't tell? That would be nonsense, of course. The same is true of the themes of the play. The "source" for all the themes of 'Hamlet' is "Hamlet." That is a fact. And I have no idea where people are getting their strange and eccentric ideas of what a "theme" is. Some people who have posted here need to go to Merriam-Webster online, and look up the word "theme." A theme is a motif, a recurring idea. That is factually what a "theme" is - look it up. A final point, is it too much to ask that words should be spelled correctly in the article? Look at what's there now -- "soliloquy" is misspelled; "cemetery" is misspelled. It looks terrible, and it's embarrassing. Please, before you post something, just copy the text over to a text editor, and run a spelling check on it, since there doesn't seem to be a spell checker here. It's great that people want to contribute, but passers-by who see the article with all those misspelled words are going to sneer and say that Wikipedia is crap. Nobody wants that. JeffJo 14:54, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
Why was the original theme summary deleted? I suppose that section could be thought of as a starter to the more broader literary critisism section, but please explain why. Bardofcornish 22:10, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
Andy,
you removed a perfectly legitimate link I put on the Hamlet page.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Marklynchster ( talk • contribs)
The plot summary for this article is, quite frankly, terrible. It simultaneously explains too much and not enough and assumes you're already familiar with scenes that you probably aren't familiar with if you're bothering to read the plot summary in the first place. The whole thing ought to be rendered in under 1,000 words, rather than the 1,562 it is now. Further, I see little reason why any reference ought to be made in the plot summary to "famous lines" and "such-and-such soliloquy" and other such nonsense. If these scenes/lines have their own articles, they ought to be linked to via a parenthetical link, but that's it. I mean, I'd hardly expect a plot summary of The Matrix to say something like, "And then Neo and Trinity walked into the lobby of the building and the famous Lobby Shoot-Out Scene began." It sounds bad and does nothing to enhance a reader's understanding of the plot which is, after all, exactly what the plot summary is supposed to do. RobertM525 10:50, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
I think we might want to delete the current plot summary. But I don't get the tag because it says- " focus on discussing the work rather than simply reiterating the plot." The plot summary needs to be just that--a plot summary. I'd be willing to write one under 1,000 words. User:bardofcornish
The soliloquy analisys ect. needs to be moved to another part of the arcticle, not necissarilly to another article entirely.
The play article does not have a "plot summary" it has a SYNOPSIS. A "synopsis" is a description of what happens in a play. That is what the word means. Objecting to the synopsis because it describes what happens in the play is absolutely ridiculous. It's a complaint that the synopsis is a synopsis. Gee, no kidding. Also, the synopsis for 'Hamlet' is inevitably going to be long, because 'Hamlet' itself is a long play. It is Shakespeare's longest play, as pointed out at the top of the article, itself. People need to face reality, if the 'Hamlet' article is going to be respectable. Any respectable synopsis for 'Hamlet' is simply going to be long, that's all. Also, the mentions of famous lines and soliloquys is so that people will know where to find them in the play. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, and in fact, it is very highly desirable. It's called "being a useful reference" which is what Wikipedia is supposed to be. JeffJo 15:14, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
I apoligize, JeffJo, it is a synopsis, not a plot summary. At any rate, that section is obviously getting better the direction it's going!! Bardofcornish 22:06, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
Should the synopsis be plagiarized from here? Brandon Christopher 22:33, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
That looks like a great site, but the synopsis looks a bit to long. I know that other editors may disagree, but if you look at the template for Shakespeare play articles (which I believe in following) it says that the synopsis should be, if I remember correctly, 600-900 words. Bardofcornish 13:12, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
Consensus still has not been reached on this issue. Is the plot summary too long or does the play merit a longer synopsis? Should analysis and commentary (i.e. "this is a famous scene...") be mixed in with the plot elements, or should it be strictly a plot description with no analysis or commentary? Thoughts?