Answer TWO of the following, or ONE in much greater detail:
Q1: In Chapter 3 of Love: A Very Short Introduction, de Sousa writes, “Many people are convinced that their love, like their belief that two and two is four, is both inescapable and grounded in reasons—even if the reasons cannot be articulated. If desire and belief are alike in this respect, perhaps the explanation is also the same for both” (47). How do we see this quote/idea illustrated in Act One? Who loves for reasons and whose love defies reason? Who is told to love for reasons? Do these reasons make sense to them (or the audience)?
Q2: Examine one of the longer speeches as if it was one of the Sonnets. If we extract this speech from the play and read it like a poem, what does it tell us? How does it play with some of the themes we encountered in the Sonnets, and how do the metaphors help us ‘see’ into the mind of the speaker?
Q3: In The Sonnets Shakespeare delighted in using theatrical metaphors to explore his experience of love. In his plays, Shakespeare loves to mock theatrical conventions and pretensions, particularly among people who don’t really know how they work. How can we read Act One, Scene 2 as a lampoon of theater in Shakespeare’s day? What ‘sins’ does he seem to accuse many actors and playwrights of committing? What makes this scene still read as humorous today, even though we have very different theatrical conventions?
Q4: Discuss some element of the filmed version of Act One that changed the play or helped you see some new aspect of it not in the text. What interpretive decisions did they make (setting, characters, costumes, etc.) that either aided or detracted from the play in your opinion? You might also consider why a production of Shakespeare always has to change something from the original text.
No comments:
Post a Comment