This is the first column I’ve written since I’ve returned from Lisbon, Portugal. I may be rusty, as it were, in writing.
One of the things I’m teaching from my home via Zoom is “Hamlet: Prince of Denmark.” To prepare for my motivational talks (I don’t “lecture” — I give motivational talks), I have read “Hamlet: A User’s Guide” by Michael Pennington, who has performed in “Hamlet, Prince of Denmark” numerous times throughout three decades.
As a Cambridge student, Pennington first played Hamlet in 1964. Later at the Royal Shakespeare Co. he was Fortinbras, and Laertes. In the 1990s he was both Claudius and the ghost for Peter Hall’s cast of “Hamlet,” which had a successful run in London’s West End.
I particularly like how Pennington’s book breaks the play into five days. For example, Act I Scene 1 through Act I Scene 5 comprise Day 1.
I lifted some vocabulary-building words from “Hamlet: A User’s Guide.” See how well you do in this week’s quiz. I encourage you to read Pennington’s book and experience a performance of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet: Prince of Denmark.”
[1.] entrepreneurial (ahn-truh-pruh-NOOHR-ee-ul)
A. socialistic
B. situations in which only the entrée is prepared
C. successful
D. when someone is not intimidated by financial risks in the hope of a successful enterprise
——————-
[2.] tour de force (tour-duh-FORCE)
A. an inanity
B. a faux pas
C. an artistic work that cannot be equaled or surpassed
D. high velocity
——————-
[3.] garrulousness (GAIR-uh-lus-ness)
A. cruelness
B. the state of excessive talkativeness, especially about insignificant matters
C. the quality of displaying chivalry
D. a state of being careless
——————-
[4.] prurience (PROO-ree-ince)
A. pureness throughout
B. the inclination or the state of having lascivious or lustful thoughts
C. stubbornness, persistency
D. royalty
——————-
[5.] Which one of the following is not a character in “Hamlet”?
A. Rosencrantz
B. Guildenstern
C. Horatio
D. Cassius
E. Claudius
No. 1 is D. Pennington recalls, “I met the play again in 1969, graduating now to Laertes in a version put together with entrepreneurial flair by Tony Richardson, with Nicol Williamson in the lead.”
No. 2 is C. Pennington describes the prince’s treatment of Ophelia as a tour de force of sexual rhetoric.
No. 3 is B. The author has observed that Polonius “instructs … Reynaldo with a mixture of garrulousness, prurience and absent-mindedness.”
No. 4 is B.
For the last one, you’re right if you chose Cassius, a general in Shakespeare’s “Julius Ceasar.”
Editor’s Note: Dr. Don Rodney Vaughan is the pastor of Mt. Vernon Baptist Church near Eupora and is on the faculty of East Mississippi Community College, Golden Triangle Campus. Contact him at dvaughan@eastms.edu.
