To be or not to be; How did I learn it?

I’ve often found learning Shakespeare to be a challenging, yet enjoyable task. I had never read in full the ‘To be or not to be’ text, partly because I’m female and partly because Hamlet is not one of my most loved Shakespeare works. However, I was somewhat vaguely familiar with the text, so when it was presented to me in lesson, I had a relative understanding as to what the speech was trying to say before I had read it through fully. It was slightly daunting to be handed a speech of such length and importance, especially when we were then told that we should be off text in 3 days’ time. My initial instinct was to read through the script and mark up the regular/irregular lines, figuring out which lines were in the typical iambic pentameter and which ones weren’t. However, we were told to read through the script as quickly as possible, marking up the words that we didn’t understand/know how to pronounce. I was proud that I knew most of the words and only struggled with a few. I found this exercise useful as it urged me to further research the script, making sure I fully knew what was occurring as the speech went on. We then split the script into its full sentences and told to speak each sentence in one breath. I found this very difficult as I struggle with breath control, so the longer sentences tripped me up. Upon repeating these sentences, however, I discovered that my breath control was getting better and, with practice, I was able to get through the longer sentences in one breath, something which I doubted I’d be able to do.

When learning the script at home, I discovered that I am very easily distracted. This is something I need to work on as it made it far more difficult to learn the script in a short period of time. In future, I will be going to the library to ensure that I am away from household distractions and nearby any texts that may assist me in my learning. I went about learning the script in the way I usually would. I started by learning the first line, then the second line, then saying the first and second lines together before moving onto the third and so on until I reached the point where I was pretty sure I knew the script. However, after taking a longer break than I should have, I noticed that I only knew up to ‘with a bare bodkin?’ instead of the whole script. I decided to let my brain rest for the night instead of forcing myself to learn more as I knew that if I forced it, more script would probably leave my brain than stay in it. The night before we had to present the script, I recorded myself speaking the script. I played this over and over again as I went to sleep the night before presenting the piece to see if that would help the speech stay in my head.

Presenting the script back to the class was an interesting experience. I enjoyed working in small groups, watching each other perform the pieces and realising that almost everyone had only learnt part of the script rather than the whole thing. It was also interesting to see how other people had interpreted the script. For example, I enjoyed seeing how my classmate Will performed the first section of the script as if he were scared, whereas Jasmine

performed it as if she were angry. This exercise helped me to see that each person’s interpretation of a script is different, and each person is right in their own way. We were then told to speak the first sentence without pausing or taking a breath. I did not value this exercise as much as the others as, in my opinion, it took away the meaning from the sentence and made it boring. Speaking it quickly and with determination may work well for some people, but to me it made the sentence less engaging and momentous as I think it is supposed to be. Hamlet is contemplating suicide – I feel that he would be taking his time, mulling over whether he should ‘be’ or ‘not be’. Speaking this line without pause took that interpretation away.