Finish the play for Thursday, and if you feel bogged down by lines you don't understand, don't feel afraid to skip (since you wouldn't catch everything in a performance, either). Look for passages you do understand and try to examine them more closely.
As always, look at how Shakespeare uses language:
* When does the language seem more noble, passionate, or poetic than usual?
* When does it descend into the most common, rambling (but hilarious) prose?
* When do characters seem to be speaking in clichés? Saying what "sounds" good rather than what makes sense?
* When are characters cracking jokes to the audience? Look for "asides"
Also, consider some of the following...
* Proteus is the biggest actor in the play: how many roles does he actually play? How many people is he deceiving? Consider Sylvia's line at the end of the play to him: "better have none/Than plural faith, which is too much by one" (5.4.51-52).
* Lance returns in Act 4, scene 4 for another big scene with Crab, which is typically hilarious. Yet it is also touching, much more so than his last one. How does Shakespeare ennoble Lance through his seemingly artless prose? How does he emerge as a more heroic figure than Proteus here?
* Julia transforms dramatically from Act 1 to Act 4-5. What allows her to do this? Is this consistent with her character? Or is she learning to 'act' like Proteus, her lover?
* Why are the women more constant than the men? Is this a convention of the time (women are virtuous, innocent, etc.), or should we read more into this?
* How does Proteus instruct Thurio to woo Sylvia? How does it do it himself? What does this say about the conventions of lovemaking in Shakespeare's time? Do these work on Sylvia?
* How does the play satirize the relationship between masters and servants, particularly when so many servants are "masters" (Proteus acting as Thurio's servant in love; Julia acting as Proteus' servant, etc.)?
* When Valentine is offered the leadership of the outlaws, he makes them promise to "do not outrages/On silly women or poor passengers" (4.2.). So why does he excuse Proteus' behavior to Sylvia--and once forgiven, even offer to give Sylvia over to her body and soul?
* Why doesn't Sylvia speak again in the play after the rape attempt? What do you think she's doing in the rest of the act, since she's still there--just silent?
* Does this play end as a comedy--or as something different? What would modern audiences make of it?
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