Notes on Module B – Critical Study of Texts – Hamlet Shakespeare

Resource Description

Module B – Critical Study of Texts

This module requires students to engage with and develop an informed personal understanding of their prescribed text. Through critical analysis and evaluation of its language, content and construction, students will develop an appreciation of the textual integrity of their prescribed text. They refine their own understanding and interpretations of the prescribed text and critically consider these in the light of the perspectives of others. Students explore how context influences their own and others’ responses to the text and how the text has been received and valued. 

 

Critical study tests your understanding of textual analysis, and how texts work. It seeks to flush out independent critical thought from students rather than merely re-expressing the ideas of other writers. You cannot merely regurgitate what everyone is saying about the text, you need to make up your own mind about what the text means and what it implies. 

 

Textual Integrity

Textual integrity is achieved when all components of the text – style, characterisation, form, language, etc combine to form a cohesive whole. The Board of Studies defines textual integrity as ‘the unity of a text; its coherent use of form and language to produce an integrated whole in terms of meaning and value.’ Thus, you will have to demonstrate how your text displays a unity of form and language to produce meaning and value over a wide range of contexts, including your own. 

Importance of Context?

Students need to acknowledge that different people read texts differently and that these differences arise from variations in world view – how someone sees the world – influenced by historical, social and cultural context. Think about how your text was received in its original context and how that is similar to, or different from, how it is read now. 

Students need to:

• Resea rch composer’s life and what influences their attitudes and intentions
• Research other contextual influences e.g. social values, political situation, contemporary issues
• Personally consider how & to what extent they believe these factors have shaped the text’s audience, purpose, content and construction
• Context
• Character analysis
• Themes & Issues explored in the text(s) and how these are developed
• Structural techniques specific to medium and/or composer
• Language/visual/filmic/dramatic techniques used and how they help construct meaning. 

Context

William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616), is one of the most influential playwrights, which Hamlet having been firmly established in the canon of English literature. 

Renaissance Humanism & Scepticism

Renaissance Humanism was an intellectual movement with origins in Italy that spread throughout Europe, challenging contemporary ways of thinking. As the Church has previously dominated intellectual endeavours, the Renaissance Humanists attempted to revive the cultural and literary legacy of Roman and Greek society, trying to emulate the scientific, logical and practical ways of thinking. 

Renaissance Humanists sought to create a society of greater eloquence and virtue, and thus championed grammar, rhetoric, history, poetry and moral philosophy. Because of this, Humanists redirected their attention away from the power of the divine, instead, looking at the capabilities of mankind and the potential of the mind. These ideas were upheld by humanists such as Pico Della Mirandola who believed that man was God’s greatest creation, made in likeness to the divine and able to choose his own nature. 

In response to this exaltation of man, a new strain called Renaissance Scepticism emerged – believed that human nature was incredibly volatile and that logical reasoning was futile as human thought was spontaneous and essentially uncontrollable. Because of this lack of certainty, humans could not really consider themselves superior to animals.