Unraveling Hamlet's Tragedy: A Study in Shakespearean Existentialism

1. Shakespeare Formatting Quotations

2. Hamlet vs. Hamlet • ALWAYS italicize the title of a play (just as you would the title of a novel or film). • This is especially helpful when the title of the play is also the name of the main character: i.e. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Hamlet is an existential man who’s preoccupation with….

3. What goes in the parenthesis? • Your citation will include the ACT, scene, and lines that you are quoting. (Shakespeare, II, iii, 37-58) • Since you are only citing Shakespeare (and only Hamlet), after the first quotation you can omit Shakespeare’s name. (I, iv, 101-117)

4. Shorter quotations: • In quoting shorter passages in linear form, you need to indicate line breaks with a slash when Shakespeare is writing in verse: Othello recalls, "Upon this hint I spake: / She lov'd me for the dangers I had pass'd, / And I lov'd her that she did pity them" (I.iii.166-168). Note the withholding of final punctuation in this case until after the parenthetical citation.

5. Longer Quotations • When quoting four or more lines from Shakespeare, use block quotation: Richard III tells his troops, Remember whom you are to cope withal: A sort of vagabonds, rascals, and runaways, A scum of Britains and base lackey peasants, Whom their o'ercloyed country vomits forth To desperate adventures and assur’ddestruction. (V.iii.315-319) The lines will appear as they do in the text, with the original punctuation as it is. Here, the final punctuation comes before the citation.

6. Works Cited: Shakespeare, William. The Merchant of Venice. Toronto: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1988. Print. Here you are using the standard works cited formatting.