If you missed class on Tuesday, we started watching the film Stage Beauty about the death of male-female actors on the English stage. We'll finish up on Thursday and discuss. This will be a useful intro to our reading of Othello coming up.
ALSO, I made an error on the revised schedule, so I've had to tweak it again slightly to accommodate my mistake. The revised schedule is below. Beneath that is the Paper #2 assignment, which is due on Friday, March 29th by 5pm (not a class date, but I needed to use Thursday to begin Othello rather than giving you that day off--sorry!).
T 12: Film: Stage
Beauty
R 14: Film: Stage
Beauty/Discussion
T 19: Spring Break
R 21: Spring Break
T 26: Sousa, Love,
Chapter 4, “Reasons”
R 28: Shakespeare, Othello, Act 1
[F 29: Paper #2 due by 5pm]
APRIL
T 2: Shakespeare, Othello, Acts 2-3
R 4: Scissortail Creative Writing Festival [no class]
T 9: Shakespeare, Othello, Acts 4-5
R 11: Wells, Shakespeare, Chapters 6-8
T 16: Shakespeare, Troilus
and Cressida, Act 1
R 18: Shakespeare, Troilus
and Cressida, Acts 2-3
T 23: Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, Acts 4-5
R 25: Wrap-Up Discussion
T 30: Group
Presentations / Assignment due
R 2: Group
Presentations / Assignment due
Final Exam: Thursday, May 9 @ 9:00
Shakespeare Paper #2: The Language of Love
“Our loves are as accidental as the rest of life. But
this is unlikely to be comforting for the beloved who wants to feel special,
and it makes for an uncommonly feeble defense of the claim that we love for
reasons” (de Sousa, Chapter 4: “Reasons”).
THE PROMPT: For your second paper, I want you to examine TWO
of the following lovers in the plays we’ve read: Juliet, Romeo, Paris, Viola, Olivia,
Orsino, Malvolio, Sebastian, Antonio. Though these aren’t all the characters
who could be in love in their respective plays, they at least talk about love,
and Shakespeare’s language allows us to characterize them according to what
they say and how they say it. So that’s what I want you to do: write about how
Shakespeare creates these lovers through their language: what are their
“reasons” for falling in love, and how do they argue and persuade others (and
themselves) that their love is real? Are we supposed to be seduced by their
poetry into feeling the same emotion? Or does it ring false? How can we tell
what ‘real’ love sounds like in Shakespeare?
HINTS: Be sure to close read a few speeches from each
character, and focus on the small details of their language—their imagery,
metaphors, clichés, rhymes, tone, and mode (verse or prose). You might choose
two lovers who complement one another, are variations of one another, or
sharply contrast with one another. For example, Romeo and Orsino have a lot in
common, while Juliet and Malvolio seem to be drastically different. What can we
learn from examining such pairs of counterparts and opposites? Do they use
similar linguistic thumbprints (metaphors, images, words)? Do they borrow the
language of The Sonnets?
SOURCES: To aid you in this discussion, you must use de
Sousa’s Love: A Very Short Introduction as support, and you might
particularly focus on Chapter 4, which focuses on the reasons (both physical
and philosophical) that we fall in love. Use his ideas and language to help you
see things you might not otherwise see, and don’t be afraid to use his
terminology as well. Additionally, you must use at least ONE biographical
source to help you consider what Shakespeare, the writer, may have been up to
in creating these characters. Biographical sources could be either Wells’ Shakespeare:
A Very Short Introduction, or any of Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Remember,
the goal of secondary sources is to enlarge the conversation and help you
consider multiple perspectives rather than just your own.
REQUIREMENS
- 4-5 pages, double spaced
- Must discuss two distinct characters (no more, no less)
- Must use de Sousa’s text and one other ‘biographical’ source
- Cite sources according to MLA format with a Works Cited
- Due the Friday after Spring Break, March 29th by 5pm
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