Paper #2: Seeing Double (due Friday, March 12th)

NOTE: Blog Response #3 for A Midsummer Night's Dream is in the post below this one...

“...our understanding of comic character could be heard as a response to the Socratic imperative, “Know Thyself.” Comedy, if it were a character, might reply: “To thine one selves be true,” or “To one’s own conflicts be true” (Bevis 43).

 

INTRO: Both The Comedy of Errors and A Midsummer Night’s Dream  are early Shakespeare comedies, and follow very similar formulas of tragic openings, main characters getting lost in an unfamiliar environment, confusions of identity leading to a comic climax, and a happy ending of reunion and marriage. Not surprisingly, the plays also share many of the same kinds of characters, down to two pairs of lovers, tyrannical dukes, buffoonish servants, and betrayed (and powerless) women.

 

PROMPT: So for your second paper, I want you to examine two characters from each play who seem to echo one another by their characters, conflicts, and language. How is Shakespeare using a specific type in both plays to advance his comedy and bring out some of the same ideas about love, identity, marriage, acting, and understanding? There are some obvious comparisons that work very well, such as Adriana & Luciana / Hermia & Helena (and Titania?); the two Antipholuses / Lysander & Demetrius; the Dromios / Robin; the Duke / Theseus & Oberon, etc. But you aren’t limited to these—you can use any two characters that you feel are variations on the same type and are used for the same effect.

 

FOCUS: Your paper should also do TWO things: (a) examine at least one speech from each character (long or short), to show us how each one performs their character in language. In Shakespeare, what people say is more important than what they do. And (b) use a passage or two from Bevis’ Comedy to help us see the comedic elements at work in each character. Don’t assume that we can see how each character is similar—show us through your analysis of the text and the connections between each characters’ language. Don’t forget to consider how they use prose, and verse (and blank verse vs. rhymed verse).

 

REQUIREMENTS

* page limit optional—but enough to make your point

* use one character from each play—no more

* analysis of at least one speech from each character (you can use another line or two for context or comparison, but you should primarily focus on one speech)

* some use of Bevis to help illustrate your ideas

* DUE FRIDAY, MARCH 12th by 5pm