COLLECTION: Hamlet Allusions/Retellings

[Ryan Goble]

This post is a place to collect Hamlet teaching reources & Allusions. The post was started in 2009 and updated March 5, 2015 to include many suggestions from MC POPPERS below.

RETELLINGS

My favorite loose retelling of Hamlet is the film Strange Brew. After that you've got to love the Simpson's Hamlet (with some Homer thrown in) "Tales from the Public...

Hamlet in 7 Disney Movies

This American Life Act V
We devote this entire episode to one story: Over the course of six months, reporter and TAL contributor Jack Hitt followed a group of inmates at a high-security prison as they rehearsed and staged a production of the last act—Act V—of Hamlet.

PBS’s New Shakespeare Uncovered Series / Hamlet with David Tennant

Song Parodies -> "Shakespearean Pie" - Lyrics / Music

Veggie Tales does a version of Hamlet called "Omelet" - "Lyle the Kindly Viking" - summary/ video

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (the whole film from the Tom Stoppard play works but here are clips)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fi3on5AKym0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LO4EQcMR2Q

Reduced Shakespeare Company Hamlet - Pt. 1, 2, 3 & 4 and on DVD The Reduced Shakespeare Company - The Complete Works of William Sha... (Abridged)

Hamlet 2 not totally OK to show the whole film in class. Just clips!

This little gem from Sesame Street Monsterpiece Theater is priceless:

Hamlet Goes Business (1987)
Having tackled Dostoevsky with his first feature, Finnish malcontent Aki Kaurismäki confronted Shakespeare with his fourth: the somewhat clueless son of a deceased business magnate is visited by his father’s ghost and, finally, given something to do. Lusciously shot in black and white and edited with the crisp pace of a B-movie, Hamlet Goes Business is remarkably faithful to its source—albeit rendered in Kaurismäki’s trademark deadpan style. The final act, in which Hamlet re-stages his version of The Murder of Gonzago, is one of the comic highpoints of the director’s career.

InstaHamlet Video @ The New York Times

BOOKS

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle
Hamlet: The 30-Minute Shakespeare
How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare
Shakespeare's Hamlet: The Manga Edition Manga Shakespeare: Hamlet
Hamlet (No Fear Shakespeare Graphic Novels)
Folger Library's Shakespeare Set Free Series - Hamlet
YA BOOK "The Total Tragedy of a Girl Named Hamlet"

LESSON PLANS / RESOURCES

“To Be Or Not To Be”: Close Reading Hamlet’s Soliloquy(Folger Library)
Enter Players: Pre-reading Hamlet (Folger Library)
A Guilty Gertrude: Performing Spoken and Silent Moments in Hamlet (Folger Library)
Paparazzi Shakespeare: Ophelia’s Madness Revealed!(Folger Library)
Teaching Shakespeare with the New York Times Learning Network (woza collection)

Thy Name Is Woman- “To be or not to be a female Hamlet - that is still the question."

GENERAL RESOURES THAT INCLUDE HAMLET RETELLINGS- MOSTLY BOOKS

ShrinkLits: Seventy of the World's Towering Classics Cut Down to Size
Ophelia Joined the Group Maidens Who Don't Float: Classic Lit Signs...
Twitterature: The World's Greatest Books in Twenty Tweets or Less plus an NPR interviewwith the author.
Infographic Guide to Literature (Infographic Guides)
Texts from Jane Eyre: And Other Conversations with Your Favorite Li...
Tales from Shakespeare Paperback(these are amazing 4 page comics of shakespeare plays - a hybrid children’s book / comic)
More Tales from Shakespeare

Calvin & Hobbes anyone?


Please share your favorite Hamlet retellings/allusions below so we can add them to the list! 

Ryan:)

[Megan Allen]

Hamlet loves need to check out this link :) it's is a hilairous telling of Hamlet. http://www.amiright.com/parody/70s/donmclean55.shtml those are the lyrics but the link to hear the song is http://www.thefump.com/fump.php?id=1014.

This is my FAVORITE link. I think it is truly amazing. It’s so funny and somewhat accurate.

[Ryan Goble]

Megan - great addition - you MUST check out this OFF THE HOOK Episode of This American Life as well!

218: Act V

We devote this entire episode to one story: over the course of six months, reporter and TAL contributor Jack Hitt followed a group of inmates at a high-security prison as they rehearsed and staged a production of the last act—Act V—of Hamlet. Shakespeare may seem like an odd match for a group of hardened criminals, but Jack found that they understand the Bard on a level that most of us might not. It's a play about murder and its consequences, performed by murderers, living out the consequences.

[Lisa Moore]

I'm a new teacher trying to figure out how best to introduce this unit. Do you think students will be ready for this at the beginning or should I hold off until they have some familiarity with the play. I'm just not sure how to get started