Speak the speech

Speech from Hamlet

"Speak the speech" is a famous speech from Shakespeare's Hamlet (1601).[1] In it, Hamlet offers directions and advice to a group of actors whom he has enlisted to play for the court of Denmark.

The speech itself has played two important roles independent of the play. It has been analyzed as a historical document for clues about the nature of early modern acting practices and it has also been used as a contemporary guide to the performance of Shakespearean drama.[2]

While there is some justification for each of these approaches, they should be distinguished from other, far less valid assertions: on the one hand, that Hamlet expresses the opinions of Shakespeare on the art of acting in a straightforward and unproblematic way; on the other, that the speech offers a proto-Stanislavskian view of the art of acting.[3] The first elides the difference between author and character, while the second ignores the historical specificity of the discourses and meanings attached to theatrical performance.[4]

## Notes

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1. ^ Philip Edwards, editor of the New Cambridge Shakespeare edition, argues for mid-1601 as the likely date for the completion of the play (1985, 4-8).
2. ^ Rodenberg (2002, 63-65) and Hall (2004, 58-61).
3. ^ See, for example, Merlin (2007, 5).
4. ^ "[A]ll theatre is 'mimetic' to some degree--but what Shakespeare understood by the requirement (voiced through Hamlet) that the stage "Hold a mirror up to Nature" is very different from the aims of 19th-century naturalistic playwrights" (Innes 2000, 5). Joseph Roach offers a detailed critique of this ahistorical approach to acting theory in The Player's Passion (1985), especially, with reference to the early modern period, the first chapter.

## Works cited

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* Edwards, Philip, ed. 1985. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare. The New Cambridge Shakespeare Ser. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-29366-9.
* Hall, Peter. 2004. Shakespeare's Advice to the Players. London: Oberon. ISBN 1-84002-411-9.
* Innes, Christopher D. 2000. A sourcebook on naturalist theatre. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-15228-0.
* Merlin, Bella. 2007. The Complete Stanislavsky Toolkit. London: Nick Hern. ISBN 978-1-85459-793-9.
* Rodenberg, Patsy. 2002. Speaking Shakespeare. London: Methuen. ISBN 0-413-70040-2.
* Roach, Joseph R. 1985. The Player's Passion: Studies in the Science of Acting. Theater:Theory/Text/Performance Ser. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 0-472-08244-2.

## Further reading

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* Berry, Cicely. 2000. The Actor and the Text. Rev. ed. London: Virgin Books. ISBN 0-86369-705-4.
* Carlson, Marvin. 1993. Theories of the Theatre: A Historical and Critical Survey from the Greeks to the Present. Expanded ed. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0-8014-8154-3.midhun
* Hagen, Uta. 1973. Respect for Acting. New York: Macmillan. ISBN 0-02-547390-5.
* Rayner, Alice. 1994. To Act, To Do, To Perform: Drama and the Phenomenology of Action. Theater: Theory/Text/Performance Ser. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 0-472-10537-X.
* Weimann, Robert. 1978. Shakespeare and the Popular Tradition in the Theater: Studies in the Social Dimension of Dramatic Form and Function. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0-8018-3506-2.

* v
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William Shakespeare's Hamlet

Characters|

* Hamlet
* Claudius
* Gertrude
* Ghost
* Polonius
* Laertes
* Ophelia
* Horatio
* Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
* Fortinbras
* The Gravediggers
* Yorick

Soliloquies|

* "To be, or not to be"
* "Mortal coil"
* "What a piece of work is a man"
* "Speak the speech"

Words and phrases|

* "Hoist with his own petard"
* "The lady doth protest too much, methinks"
* "Thy name is"

Terminology|

* Dumbshow
* Induction
* Quiddity
* Substitution

* Sources
* Criticism

* Legend of Hamlet
* The Spanish Tragedy
* Ur-Hamlet
* Critical approaches
* Bibliographies
* Saxo Grammaticus
* House of Gonzaga
* Damon and Pythias

Influence|

* Common phrases from Hamlet
* Cultural references to Hamlet
* Cultural references to Ophelia
* Language of flowers
* Human skull symbolism

Performances|

* Moscow Art Theatre (1911–1912)
* Richard Burton (1964)
* List of skulls used to depict Yorick

On screen|

* 1900
* 1907
* 1908
* 1912
* 1913
* 1917
* 1921
* 1935
* 1948
* 1954
* 1961
* 1964
* 1969
* 1974
* 1990
* 1996
* 2000
* 2011
* upcoming film

Adaptations|

| Films|

* The Rest Is Silence (1959)
* The Bad Sleep Well (1960)
* Ophelia (1963)
* Johnny Hamlet (1968)
* One Hamlet Less (1973)
* The Angel of Vengeance – The Female Hamlet (1977)
* Strange Brew (1983)
* Hamlet Goes Business (1987)
* The Lion King (1994)
* Let the Devil Wear Black (1999)
* The Banquet (2006)
* Doubt (2009)
* Karmayogi (2012)
* Haider (2014)
* Hamlet A.D.D. (2014)
* Hemanta (2016)
* Ophelia (2018)
* The Lion King (2019)

|

Novels|

* Hamlet Had an Uncle (1940)
* Too, Too Solid Flesh (1989)
* Gertrude and Claudius (2000)
* Dating Hamlet (2002)
* The Dead Fathers Club (2006)
* Something Rotten (2007)
* Hamlet's Father (2008)
* The Story of Edgar Sawtelle (2008)

Plays|

* Hamletmachine (1977)
* Dogg's Hamlet (1979)
* Fortinbras (1991)

Musicals|

* Rockabye Hamlet (1973)

Television|

* Hamlet (Australian TV, 1959)
* Hamlet at Elsinore (BBC, 1964)
* Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (BBC, 1980)
* Hamlet (BBC 2, animated, 1992)
* Hamlet (BBC 2, 2009)

Parodies|

* 15-Minute Hamlet
* The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)
* Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
* I, Hamlet
* The Klingon Hamlet
* "Lyle the Kindly Viking"
* To Be or Not to Be: That is the Adventure
* "Tales from the Public Domain"
* The Skinhead Hamlet

Songs|

* "My Robin is to the greenwood gone" (16th century)
* "Pull Me Under" (1992)
* "Song for Athene" (1997)

Opera/classical|

* Hamlet (Thomas)
* Amleto (Faccio)
* Hamlet (Tchaikovsky)
* Tristia (Berlioz)
* Die Hamletmaschine (Rihm)
* Hamlet (Dean)

In popular culture|

| Films|

* To Be or Not to Be (1942)
* A Performance of Hamlet in the Village of Mrduša Donja (1973)
* To Be or Not to Be (1983)
* Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (1990)
* Highlander II: The Quickening (1991)
* Last Action Hero (1993)
* Renaissance Man (1994)
* In the Bleak Midwinter (1995)
* War (2002)
* Hamlet 2 (2008)
* Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead (2009)
* Three Days (of Hamlet) (2012)
* Grand Theft Hamlet (2024)

|

Plays|

* Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1966)
* Stage Blood (1974)
* I Hate Hamlet (1991)
* To Be or Not to Be (2008)

Novels|

* Hamlet, Revenge! (1937)
* Theatre of War (1994)
* "The Undiscovered" (1997)
* The Shakespeare Stealer (1998)
* Interred with Their Bones (2007)
* Hamnet (2020)

Television|

* "The Producer" (1966)
* "The Conscience of the King" (1966)
* "Born to Be King" (1983)
* "Terrance and Phillip: Behind the Blow" (2001)
* Slings & Arrows (2003)

Video games|

* Last Action Hero (1993)
* Hamlet (2010)
* Elsinore (2019)

Books|

* Asterix and the Great Crossing
* The Seagull
* Sharpe's Havoc

Art|

* Ophelia (Millais)
* Ophelia (Cabanel)
* Affe mit Schädel
* Ophelia (Waterhouse)
* Polish Hamlet. Portrait of Aleksander Wielopolski
* The River Bank (Ophelia)

Related|

* Hamlet and Oedipus
* Hamlet and His Problems
* Hebenon
* Hamlet Q1
* Ostalo je ćutanje
* The Chronicles of Amber
* "Symphony No. 65" (Haydn)
* The Hobart Shakespeareans
* Gertrude – The Cry
* Poor Murderer
* Something Rotten!
* Sons of Anarchy

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