For Tuesday: Wells, William Shakespeare: A Very Short Introduction, Chapters 6 and 8

Let's return one last time to our short supplementary text by Stanley Wells, and read Chapter 6 (Tragedy) and Chapter 8 (Tragicomedy). This will give us a little insight about the tragedies we've already read, and the strange 'tragicomedy' to come, The Tempest.

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: Wells writes that it is "unfashionable, indeed it is often regarded as unscholarly, to look for reflections of an artist's life in his work" (88). Why do you think this is? Wouldn't it be common sense to assume that a writer's life and events would spill into his work, even if only subsconciously? What might be the danger in looking to deeply for such connections? Would it be better to avoid them altogether?

Q2: Wells makes many critical assumptions in these chapters regarding interpretation, particularly in his brief discussion of the plays we've read in class--Macbeth and King Lear. Are there any assumptions that you disagreed with or wished he had supported wtih evidence? What might be the problem of taking these readings at face value?

Q3: Wells also suggests in Chapter 8 that Shakespeare might have actually been fired from his theatrical company as he got into his 40's. Why is this? What elements that he discusses in both Chapters 6 and 8 might have gradually made him less popular and less useful for a theater company? Do we see any evidence of this in King Lear?

Q4: According to this discussion of the 'tragicomedies' in Chapter 8, why might these be some of his least popular and known plays (excluding The Tempest, which is pretty well-known)? Why don't we read and perform Pericles or Cymbeline very often in colleges and Shakespeare-in-the-Park? Does Wells feel this neglected is warranted? 

For Thursday: King Lear, Acts 4-5 & In-Class Response (Paper #3!)

NOTE: See the revised course schedule below if you didn't get it in class on Tuesday, or lost it subsequently. We're changing a few things around to give us more time to read The Tempest, our last play, in the closing weeks. I abolished Paper #3 and made it a simple in-class response on Thursday, which you should get full points for--just remember to bring your book! Also, both Paper #2 and #3 (the in-class writing) have been reduced to 10 pts. each, since I made them both shorter, easier assignments. That makes the final assignment worth 30 pts, but it's not designed to be a killer assignment by any means. I think you'll enjoy it! I plan to assign it to you next week, so stay tuned...

Here are some idease to consider for the final acts:

* How do the characters' views of fate and the gods change as the play goes on? Lear, Gloucester, Kent, and all the old order seem to believe implictly in fate, revenge, and the forces of Juno. Do they still? Especially given that this is a tragedy and ends tragically!

* How do you read the scene where Edgar pretends to lead his father over the edge of a cliff? Is this a big joke? Is it a moment of comedy in the tragedy? Or is it meant to be deeply moving?

* What is Edmund's endgame in act 5, especially since he's seducing both sisters and playing them off of each other? IS this his plan, or is he falling victim to his own schemes and self-destruction? Has he become Macbeth at last?

* What happens to the Fool after Act 3, since he never returns to the play? Also, why does Cordelia return to the play only after the Fool vanishes? Does she play the role of the Fool for Lear (sort of like Caroline plays the role of wife/daughter for her father in A Thousand Acres?). 

* By the end of the play, who are the villains? Who are the heroes? Who is redeemed? Who is damned? Are any of these questions easy to answer? 

(RE) REVISED COURSE SCHEDULE FOR THE LAST WEEKS

NOVEMBER

T 5      Film Continued / Paper #2 due by 5pm

R 7      Shakespeare, King Lear, Act 1

 

T 12    Shakespeare, King Lear, Acts 2-3

R 14    Shakespeare, King Lear, Act 4-5 (In-Class Response is Paper #3!)

 

T 19    Wells, William Shakespeare, Chapters 6 & 8

R 21    Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act 1

 

T 26    Shakespeare, The Tempest, Acts 2-3

R 28    THANKSGIVING BREAK

 

DECEMBER

T 3      Shakespeare, The Tempest, Acts 4-5

R 5      Class Wrap-Up

 

FINAL EXAM PRESENTATIONS: TBA

For Tuesday: King Lear, Acts 2-3

NOTE: A LOT goes on in these acts, so just get as far as you can into Act 3 for Tuesday. We won't have time to talk about all of this, but we'll do as much as we can, including talking about the craziness of Act 3, scene 7, which is definitely not in A Thousand Acres (except very distantly). 

Answer TWO of the following:  

Q1: Act 2.2 is a strange scene, where Kent goes after Oswald like a man out for revenge. He not only viciously berates him (pp.83-85), but attacks him and seems on the verge of killing him. Since this scene almost comes out of nowhere, is this scene supposed to be played for laughs (like the Porter scene in Macbeth)? Is Kent just acting mad here for the audiences’ entertainment? And if so, why does Regan punish him so severely?

Q2: In Act 2, Scene 4, when Regan and Goneril decide to openly defy their father’s demands, Lear exclaims “I gave you all” (52).  This echoes his later line in the storm when he proclaims, “I am a man/More sinned against than sinning” (58). Are our sympathies starting to shift here? Is he simply a confused and abandoned old man left with "nothing"? Or is he merely acting to punish his daughers for not abasing themselves before him and fulfilling his every need? 

Q3: Act 3, Scene 6, the so-called “trial scene” only appears in the early quarto version of the play (Q1).  The authentic version of Lear was published in the complete version of Shakespeare’s works, the Folio version, in 1623, and this entire scene is missing.  Either Shakespeare thought the better of it and cut it or it simply got lost in translation.  The editors of this version, though following the Folio, decided to reinstate it.  What do we gain from having this scene in the play?  Does it underline or foreshadow important themes or events in the play?  Or is it too much of the same, including a lot of “nothing”?  

Q4: How do you account for the extreme cruelty of Act 3, Scene 7, where both sisters and Regan’s husband, Cornwall, gang up on Gloucester?  Though the sisters may have seemed cruel earlier in the play, here they are truly sadistic, taking glee in plucking Gloucester’s beard and removing his eyes.  Why do they do this, and how might earlier scenes have prepared us for this (or explained their motivation)? 

Q5: What do you think Edgar’s role in the play is as “Poor Tom”?  Though he has some of the craziest lines in the play, he is clearly acting, as he pops out of character at the End of 3.6 to talk to the audience.  Is he a foil to Lear?  A rival to the Fool?  Or a mirror to Cordelia (especially if she is the Fool)?  

For Thursday: King Lear, Act 1

NOTE: I said read Acts 1-2 for Thursday (which you can), but I forgot that the syllabus says only Act 1, which makes more sense. This is a BIG play with a lot of moving parts and characters, so let's take it slow. Besides, we'll never get through both acts in class on Thursday, and it's Election Day with all the resulting craziness, so just read the First Act. We'll hit 2-3 for next Tuesday.

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: How do you read Cordelia's response to King Lear in Act 1, Scene 1? Is she being obstinate? Spoiled/entitled? Innocent/naive? Is she testing him like he seems to be testing her? What does she mean when she says, "I shall never marry like my sisters/To love my father all" (13)? 

Q2: How does Goneril share some characteristics with Rose from A Thousand Acres, and why might Jane Smiley have been inspired by her character from the beginning? While most characters in the play see her actions as "unnatural," does Shakespeare allow us to see her side of things? Are we sympathetic with her? Does she have a legitimate greviance against her father? And related to this, is he trying to provoke her?

Q3: In many ways, King Lear is a response to Macbeth, with some of the same language and themes (Hecate is invoked, as is the sense of things being 'unnatural'). How might Edmund be a version of Macbeth himself, but one who is more honest with his motivations and actions? How does he tell the audience who he is and what he is doing? (something Macbeth never really does).

Q4: In many of Shakespeare's plays, he introduces a character called a Fool, who is a professional comedian whose job is to provoke the nobility. While speaking in apparent riddles and nonsense, they also speak the truth to power. What is the Fool's message to King Lear, and how much does he seem to understand of it? Do you think it goes over his head...or does he understand it, and choose to ignore it? 

For Tuesday: A Thousand Acres (1997)

On Thursday, we watched the first hour or so of A Thousand Acres, which is an adaptation of Jane Smiley's novel which is in turn a loose adaptation of Shakespeare's King Lear. There are some significant changes, as you'll see when we read the play, but most of the main machinery of the play emerges intact, including the relationships between the daughters and Lear himself. What changes is how the story is told from Virginia and Rose's perspective (Regan and Goneril in the play), and by the backstory Smiley adds to their tumultous life with their father. We'll come back to this perspective when we start reading Lear next week.

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: Why does the youngest daughter, Caroline, seem to refuse her father's offer of a one-third share in the company? What does she mean when instead of making up her father, she tells Virginia, "I hate the little girl stuff"? Does she seem to be doing this for the right reasons? 

Q2: How are Virginia and Rose a little like Lady Macbeth in Macbeth (at least before Act 5)? Why can they be seen as "fiendish wives" by some, even though their actions make sense in context? Are there any other other explicit connections between one or both of them to Lady Macbeth?

Q3: Why does Virginia strike up an adulterous romance with Jess Clark, the prodigial son who has returned to his father's farm? She seems to have a good marriage and a loving husband, unlike Rose, whose relationship with her husband hints at violence and disgust (especially of her recent operation). What might Jess see in her as well?

Q4: Rose drops a bombshell on Virginia the night of the storm, when she tells Virginia that their father had sex with them both for years (though Virginia claims not to remember any of this). Do you believe her? Is she saying this merely to get Virginia more on her side, and further away from their father & Caroline? Or was she simply waiting for the right moment to tell her (or maybe, waiting for Virginia to admit the truth herself)? NOTE: This isn't in Shakespeare, but is something Smiley added into her own novel. 

Q5: Larry Cook "Daddy" (or King Lear) is a figure of fear and malice in the movie, never kind, always menacing, and seeming to take pleasure in his daughter's disgrace. Why don't other people in the town see this, but instead, view him as a tragic, betrayed figure? And why does Caroline see the same "betrayed" father instead of the "betrayer"?  

Paper #2 assignment and A Thousand Acres

REMEMBER that we're going to start watching A Thousand Acres on Thursday, which is an adaptation of King Lear. Your second paper will be due on Tuesday, the day we finish the movie and start discussing it. 

English 3213

Paper #2: Magic or Madness?

INTRO: In Act 3, Scene 5, the character of Hecate enters the play, chiding the witches for their “trade and traffic” with Macbeth, and bidding the witches meet her at “the pit of Acheron…in the morning.” This scene could very well dispel the ambiguity of the play by making the witches, the magic, and a demon itself real, and potentially reducing Macbeth’s agency throughout the play. However, the scene also ties the play into the Elizabethan love of magic and devilry which we see in so many plays of the time, from Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus (where devils pull Dr. Faustus into hell itself), and Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (where fairies exist side-by-side with mortals and cast spells on them). So it can work, but it becomes a very different play than the one where the audience is left to interpret the witches’ role in Macbeth’s madness, leaving him at center stage.

PROMPT: For this short paper, you have been commissioned to adapt a new version of Macbeth for performance at ECU. But the question is, should this production focus on magic or madness? Should it emphasize that the spirit world is manipulating Macbeth for its own macabre ends, or should it leave the witches at the margins, focusing on the human drama of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth? Which one would make the better play in your opinion?

To support your staging, discuss ONE PASSAGE/SPEECH that you feel would most benefit from your approach. Close read the passage, explaining the ideas/language in the passage, and show how emphasizing the magic or the madness angle would aid your interpretation of this passage, and give the entire play more power and purpose. You can briefly hint at other scenes as well, but focus your analysis solely on this one passage. A “passage” should be no more than a page or two, or even one speech. Don’t do an entire scene from an act, since this is designed to be a short, focused assignment.

ALSO: This is a short paper, so shoot for around 3 pages, though you can do a bit more if necessary. You MUST quote from the passage in question and close read it carefully to fulfill the assignment (don’t rely on summaries and paraphrases). You can use outside sources from the William Shakespeare: A Very Short Introduction or other sources (or other productions) if you think this will help, but it’s not required.

DUE TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 5^th by 5pm

For Thursday: Macbeth, Acts 3-4

An RSC production of Macbeth 

Though there are 5 questions here (I couldn't help myself), you still only have to answer TWO of them. 

Q1: Act 3.5, the scene with Hecate, is largely considered to be the work of Thomas Middleton, a contemporary playwright who wrote a play about witches at roughly the same time of Macbeth (he adapted Macbeth after Shakespeare’s retirement to make more money). In reading this scene, does anything strike you as different from the rest of the play? The language? Metaphors? Characterization? Or would you have assumed that Shakespeare wrote this, too?

Q2: How informed is Lady Macbeth about the murder of Banquo and the attempted murder on Fleance (his son)? Is she still the mastermind of the play, or has Macbeth usurped her role? Is there any way to tell who’s calling the shots at this point?

Q3: The “Murderers” that Macbeth hires in 3.1 aren’t really murderers at this point in the play (it’s clear that they haven’t murdered before, and are not professional assassins). How does Macbeth convince them to murder Banquo and/or how does he justify it to himself? Why, too, does he hire murderers now instead of doing the job himself, as he did with Duncan?

Q4: In Act 4, scene 3, Malcolm tells Macduff that "black Macbeth/will seem as pure as snow, and the poor state/Esteem him as a lamb, being compared/With my confineless harms...there's no bottom, none/In my voluptousness" (143). Why does he threaten to be an even worse ruler than Macbeth, and vow to debauch women, ruin men, and destroy order?

Q5: In Scene 2, Lady Macduff tells her son that Macduff (who has fled lest he be killed by Macbeth) is "dead" and "a traitor." Why does she say this, especially as her son knows that neither of them are true? Is she joking with him, or being deadly serious? You might also account for her line, "Why, I can buy me twenty [husbands] at any market."

For Tuesday: Macbeth, Acts 1-2

NOTE: The version of Macbeth by Roman Polansky we watched in class on Thursday covers Acts 1 and up to Act 2.1, right before the murder. Since Act 2 is very short, this will bring you up to speed on all the action in the play, and help you visualize it as you read. But pay close attention to the language, since the language of Macbeth is some of his most evocative, and is utterly unlike anything we've read in class so far.

Answer TWO of the following: 

Q1: Though most of the play is in blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter), characters often end scenes with rhymed couplets, such as the following: “Away, and mock the time with fairest show./False face must hide what the false heart doth/know” (1.7). Why does Shakespeare do this? What does the flash of rhyme do for the play or the speech? How would we hear and experience this in the audience?

Q2: Most productions of the play portray Macbeth and Lady Macbeth as a couple that is fiercely in love (as we see in Polansky’s 1971 film). Is this corroborated in the text of Acts 1 and 2 itself? Where do we see a couple in love, rather than just another medieval arranged marriage? Why might this relationship be important for the audience to see, and hear, in the play itself?

Q3: One of the most famous speeches in the play is Macbeth’s “Is this a dagger which I see before me?” in Act 2.1. Read this speech carefully and discuss the construction of a particular line that would be difficult to translate into modern English. Why is this? What is Shakespeare trying to show us through this tortured syntax?

Q4: Macbeth is a play that is often staged historically, meaning its set in a time very close to the one Shakespeare portrays in the play. Why do you think this play might resist modernizing or setting in, say, modern-day New York or London? Discuss a scene or passage that might be difficult to realize in translation, and makes much more sense in an early medieval Scotland (as Polansky does).

For Tuesday: Ten Things I Hate About You (1999)

NOTE: We still have a bit of the film to watch, maybe 30 minutes or so, but feel free to answer these questions before we finish...OR, you can answer them sometime after class on Tuesday. But I want to grapple with the adaptation element of the film, since eventually this aspect will become important to your writing in the class (hint, hint). 

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: First, the most obvious question: can Shakespeare be Shakespeare without the language? While they make a few "easter egg" attempts to preserve his language, such as when Cameron (Lucentio) says, "I burn, I pine, I perish...", most of it is completely modern. Is the plot and characters enough to perserve the tone and feel of a Shakespearean comedy? Or is this merely a comedy "inspired by" Shakespeare? Try not just to say yes or no, explain WHY you think this could still count as an adaption or not. 

Q2: How might the film explain some aspect of the play which either doesn't make sense, or isn't really explained by Shakespeare? In other words, why might this film be a 'theory' or a 'staging' of the play, which answers some of the questions left by Shakespeare for the actors and the audience?  OR, how could we take some of the ideas in this film and apply them backwards to the play? 

Q3: When Kat tells her friend (who has no real counterpart in the play) that she intends to boycott the prom because it's an antiquated mating ritual, her friend replies, "oh, so we're making a statement...oh goody, something new and different for us!" It's a funny line, but why might it also be pertinent to the play itself? 

Q4: Kat and Patrick lack a big "courting" scene like we get in Act 2 of the play, though they have several smaller ones sprinkled throughout the play. According to the film, why does she begin to fall in love with him? Is it because he's "crazy"--or willing to defy the roles of a typical lover--or is it more superficial (he learns what she likes and pretends to like them)? In other words, is their relationship closer to the play or closer to Hollywood comedies? 

Q5: Even though the play distances itself from its Shakespearean source, how does it subtly marry itself to a Shakespearean identity throughout the play? How effective are these attempts? Are they merely there for the 'insider,' or do they actually add something to the film itself? 

For Tuesday: The Taming of the Shrew, Acts 4-5

NOTE: NO QUESTIONS for Tuesday, since we'll do an in-class writing about the very end of the play--so keep reading and finish for Tuesday's class! Here are some ideas to consider that might help you...

* If Katherine and Petruchio seem to be intellectual equals in Acts 2 and 3, why does he use falcon-taming metaphors to discuss his ‘breaking of her? Couldn’t he win her by sheer love and respect at this point?

* Read Katherine’s final speech carefully, where she basically chides women for going against their husbands. What is different about her language here? Is this sincere…or is this acting? And if so, for whom?

* Is Katherine turned into Christopher Sly by the end of the play? Is that basically the entire joke of the play: that he gets to tell her who she is, and she believes it? Are we sure the lesson takes (see above question).

* Why do you think Shakespeare never returns to the world of Sly and the Induction? Wouldn’t that soften the cruel end of the play, and make it just a joke—not “real” and not the true point of the play? Or would it make the play too literal? (“all the world’s a stage,” etc.).

* Some modern version of The Taming of the Shrew have ‘solved’ the problem of Kate’s sadistic taming by switching genders: that is, a woman plays Pertruchio, and a man played Katherine. What problems might this solve for the audience? Or is this merely another case of believing too much in appearances?

For Thursday: The Taming of the Shrew, Acts 2 & 3

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: How do you read the sparring match between Petruchio and Katherine in Act 2? Is it meant to be angry and threatening? Or light-hearted and flirtatious? Is he cynical, or sincerely intrigued? Is she grossly offended, or flattered? How do you “hear” this exchange? Consider lines such as, “Yet you are withered./’Tis with cares./I care not” (93).

Q2: The sisters Katherine and Bianca are clearly echoed in the later sisterly pair, Hero and Beatrice, but with a distinct difference. How do they contrast with the later pair, and what seems to be the defining nature of their relationship? Why might we also argue that as the father of two daughters, Shakespeare might have been drawing them from life?

Q3: At the end of Act 3, Gremio suggests that “Petruchio is Kated” (133). Does this mean that Petruchio is actually, against his better judgment, falling in love with her? And is she with him? Are we rooting for them to fall in love like Beatrice and Benedict? Or is this match doomed from the start (as Bianca suggests—“being mad herself, she’s madly mated”)?

Q4: Though Bianca is in the shadow of her older sister, she is hardly a push-over herself. How does she respond to the attempts of her lovers (Lucentio and Hortensio) to woo her in Act 3? Where do we hear some of Katherine’s wit, and scorn, in her replies? Why isn’t she seen as a “shrew” for turning them down?

For Tuesday: The Taming of the Shrew, Induction & Act 1

Read the first two acts (the Induction and Act 1) for Tuesday's class, and think of the world of Much Ado About Nothing as you do so. In a sense, all of Shakespeare's comedies are like reading the same play, only the characters have different names and he adds or subtracts a few of them. The landscape should be familiar, though there will be a few significant changes--mostly in the language (see below). 

The Paper #1 assignment (which I gave out in class) is in the post BELOW this one.. 

Answer TWO of the following: 

Q1: This might seem like an obvious question, but what is the purpose of the Induction given that the characters seem to be English (Christopher Sly, etc.) and hardly make an appearance in Act 1? How might we regard the Induction as a theory, or a lens, for interpreting the rest of the play (and esp. Act 1)?

Q2: Do the characters in The Taming of the Shrew speak more in prose or verse? How does this affect how we ‘hear’ the characters or read the play? Does it make the play more or less comic? On the other hand, are there characters who only speak prose in the play? Why might this be?

Q3: To prepare you for your Paper #1, what moments of déjà vu do you experience when reading this play after Much Ado About Nothing? Where do we see Shakespeare using the same comic building blocks in his writing, or using some of the same characters and speeches (since he wrote for largely the same actors in play after play)? For fun, where we might we see one of the actors in Much Ado in this play?

Q4: In Wells’ William Shakespeare, he explains that many people had trouble accepting that the great William Shakespeare could have been born a lowly nobody from Stratford. How could such a person write the great plays of Hamlet, King Lear, and Othello? However, why might we argue that such a person is the ideal candidate for writing plays like The Taming of the Shrew? What could someone from small-town England be able to see and understand (as evidenced in this play) more than an Oxford-educated Londoner?

Paper #1 assignment and Revised Course Schedule

English 3213: Shakespeare

Paper #1: Shakespeare’s Secret Sauce

INTRO: In Wells’ William Shakespeare: A Very Short Introduction, he notes that notonly did Shakespeare obsess over comedy for most of his career, but “it is typical of Shakespeare that he broadens [a comedy’s] emotional range by enclosing the farcical action with a serious framework” (71). These moments are almost part of Shakespeare’s comedic DNA, and you can find them in virtually every Shakespearean comedy. It’s fascinating to try to isolate these recurring themes, since this tell us not only how he wrote his plays, but what motivated him to do so. As a playwright, what did he find funny, compelling, disturbing, perplexing, and most of all, human? And how did he define a ‘comedy’?

PROMPT: For your first paper, I want you to discuss ONE specific element of Shakespeare’s comedy that repeats almost verbatim from Much Ado to The Shrew. You might call this variations on a theme, since it doesn’t have to presented in exactly the same way, but it should be the same ‘theme,’ meaning that if you put them side by side, you would go, “oh yeah, there it is again.” So the question is why does he repeat this element, and how does he change/adapt it from one play to the next? Can we tell that one version is earlier and one later? Does the language change? The types of characters? The dramatic situation? And most of all, does he make it a joke…or does he veer away from comedy altogether?

Some themes/elements you might consider are:

• Language—specific speeches, exchanges, jokes/puns, etc.
• Characters—stock types (the naïve lover, the feuding couple, the scheming villain, the saucy servant, the bumbling official, etc.)
• Scenes—specific interactions, comic confusions, pranks at other characters’ expense, etc.
• Genre—moments when we enter a different kind of play (tragedy, farce, etc.)
• Songs—the way he incorporates music/poetry from outside the play
• Meta moments—where he seems to be winking at the audience, showing his awareness of being an actor/playwright/poet
• Others…?

NOTE: Try to make it more than a compare/contrast essay. Look at it more as figuring out why he chose to repeat this element, what it reveals about his comedy, and how he might have expanded it from one play to the next (especially as he matured as an artist).

REQUIREMENTS

• Page limit optional, but we both know when you haven’t put in enough work!
• QUOTE from each play and examine the quotes—or as we say in English, “close reading.” Don’t just summarize what you see, SHOW us.
• Introduce quotations with the Act and Scene like so “Act 2.3,” etc., and cite the page number from your edition.
• DUE IN TWO WEEKS: Thursday, October 3^rd by 5pm

REVISED COURSE SCHEDULE

T 24     Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew, Induction-Act 1

R 26    The Taming of the Shrew, Acts 2-3 (ALSO: Originals Reading @ 3:30)

 

OCTOBER

T 1       Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew, Acts 4-5

R 3      Ten Things I Hate About You; Paper #1 due by 5pm

 

T 8       Ten Things continued

R 10    FALL BREAK

 

T 15     Film: Macbeth adaptation (TBA)

R 17    Film Continued & Wells, William Shakespeare, Chapter 6

 

T 22     Shakespeare, Macbeth, Acts 1-2

R 24    Shakespeare, Macbeth, Acts 3-4

 

T 29     Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 5  

R 31    Film: A Thousand Acres (1997)

 

NOVEMBER

T 5       Film Continued / Paper #2 due by 5pm

R 7      Shakespeare, King Lear, Act 1

 

T 12     Shakespeare, King Lear, Acts 2-3

R 14    Shakespeare, King Lear, Act 4-5

 

T 19     Shakespeare, The Tempest, Acts 1-2

R 21    Shakespeare, The Tempest, Acts 3-5

 

T 26     Paper #3 due by 5pm (no class)

R 28    THANKSGIVING BREAK

 

DECEMBER

T 3       Wells, William Shakespeare, Chapter 8 & Epilogue

R 5      Adaptation Discussions/Wrap Up

 

FINAL EXAM PRESENTATIONS: TBA

For Thursday: William Shakespeare: A Very Short Introduction, Chapter 5, "Shakespeare and Comic Form"

For Thursday's class, read Chapter 5 from the William Shakespeare book, and we'll continue our discussion about Shakespeare's background by discussing his comedies. What did he understand a 'comedy' was, and what makes his comedies all a generic unit, like his tragedies, or histories? NO QUESTIONS to respond to, though we'll have an in-class writing over it on Thursday which will feed into your Paper #1 assignment (which I'll always hand out).

However, here are some ideas to consider as you read...

* Shakespeare wrote basically four types of plays: comedies, tragedies, histories, and what we call 'romances,' which combine the first two categories. What does it say about him that at least half of his entire output was comedy? Why might he have prefered this genre to any of the others, considering he kept going back to it, even at the end of his career?

* Of all Shakespeare's plays, the comedies are often the most derivative (or borrowed, that is), as almost all the plots come from other plays, books, and poems. Why do you think Shakespeare preferred his comedies to be so second-hand? Is this still true of comedies today? Are most of them 'reboots'?

* What consistent themes, characters, or situtations seem to crop up most often in his comedies, according to Wells' summary of them? Why might these have particularly interested Shakespeare?

* Why does Shakespeare always set his plays in far-off locales when they could have just as easily taken place in England (and indeed, many of them reference English places and some characters have English names)? What might this have allowed him to do under the guise of "comedy"? 

* How do Shakespeare's later comedies differ from his earlier ones? What might have accounted for this biographically? Artistically?

* Why might have Shakespeare gravitated more and more towards prose by the middle of his career (around the time of Much Ado)? 

For Tuesday: Wells, William Shakespeare: A Very Short Introduction, Chapters 1-2

At long last, we're going to read from our companion text, William Shakespeare: A Very Short Introduction, by the renowed Shakespeare author and scholar, Stanley Wells. The book offers a short examination of his life, culture, and work to piece together how one man managed to write some of the most celebrated plays (and indeed, works of literature) ever written. Much of this book might surprise you by challenging long-held rumors and revealing some strange and interesting truths about his life and works. 

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: What exactly makes Shakespeare's early life (that is, before he came to London and became a playwright) so mysterious? Why might some of these details seem unlikely as the backdrop for the future great dramatist/poet? And why might some people use it as evidence that Shakespeare didn't write the plays attributed to him (at least, not without help)?

Q2: Earlier in the class, we looked at four alleged portraits of Shakespeare, all of which capture some aspect of the Shakespeare myth (even if none are authentic). However, why might some of what we DO know about his life--especially in older age, after he retired from the stage, not square with the myth of his works and that of an inspired artist? Why might we also point to this portrait and say, "that's not the guy who wrote Hamlet!" 

Q3: When Shakespeare is taught to high school students, he seems to come out of thin air, as if no one existed before him to offer him guidance. According to the book, where DID Shakespeare, the artist, come from? Who were his heroes? Who inspired him? What did he learn from? And why might we argue that Shakespeare was just as good at adapting literaure as writing it himself?

Q4: What reality of theater or acting in Shakespeare's day might surprise us, according to the book? How might it change the way Shakespeare's drama was seen or experienced? Why don't we experience like that today? Would it still be entertaining? 

For Thursday: Much Ado About Nothing, Acts 3-5

For Thursday, try to finish the play, since after Act 3, Acts 4 and 5 are quite short. No questions this time, but we'll have an in-class response question when you get to class. However, here are some ideas to consider as you read (you do NOT have to answer these--they're just thought-provoking): 

* Consider how love is almost always a form of manipulation in this play. Don Pedro pretends to be Claudio to woo Hero; everyone lies to Benedick and Beatrice to get them to fall in love; and even Don John manipulates Claudio OUT of love with his lies. What might this say about the nature of love in this play? Is anyone in love of their own free will? Or is it always a "trap," as Hero suggests in Act 3?

* There is much more verse in the play in Acts 3 & 4: Hero and Ursula speak verse throughout their trick to Beatrice, and Claudio speaks it throughout the entire wedding scene, as does Don Pedro and Leonto. Why is this? Why might verse be more appropriate/effective than prose? What should it 'sound' like?

* As this is a play all about acting, it's also a play about seeing--or the inability to see. At one point, Claudio says, "You seem to me as Dian in her orb...But you are more intemperate in your blood/Than Venus" (127). In other words, you are not the woman I see (Diana--the virgin huntress) but the woman I've been told to see Venus (the goddess of erotic love). Why don't most characters trust appearances in this play? And which ones do? What is this even more interesting for the audience, since we 'see' everything?

* Why do you think Dogberry only appears in Act 3, almost at the end of the play? Indeed, he almost seems like an afterthought, but a very good one. Why do you think Shakespeare added him into the mix? 

* Why is it significant that Benedick never speaks verse in the entire play, and when he tries to write a poem, it's really awful? Does this suggest he cannot love sincerely? Is it all a sort of act to him? OR, is poetry itself a kind of act that can be more false than true?

* Why do Beatrice and Benedick almost fall out of love at the end of the play? Why might this very misunderstanding explain the nature of their conflict in Act 1? Might this have happened before?

* Why does Don John just disappear from the play after Act 4, and when he is finally mentioned again, Benedick merely says, "Think not on him till tomorrow"? Is it clumsy of Shakespeare to use him as a mere plot device and then discard him? 

* And related to the above, in a sense, is Don Pedro just as bad as Don John (they are brothers, after all)? Or to put this in another light, is Don Pedro just better intentioned than Don John? Do they basically do the same things to the same people, just with slightly different results? And is Don Pedro secretly a bit malicious himself? 

For Tuesday: Much Ado About Nothing, Acts 1-2

For Tuesday's class, read Acts 1 and 2 of Much Ado, which hopefully will seem very familiar to you after the film. But I hope you also notice a lot of lines, passages, and even characters that escaped your notice in the film (especially, since some of them were cut). Keep thinking about why the film made the choices it did, and if you feel the adaptation best served your sense of the text--its comedy, its poetry, and its humanity. 

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: How does the play suggest that Beatrice and Benedict have a back story, as the film suggested they did in the opening scene (where he sneaks out the 'next morning')? Do they both feel the same way about each other? How do their lines hint at this secret (and possibly very powerful) relationship?

Q2: What characters speak most often in verse, even though most of the play is spoken in prose? (and every character speaks prose--no one exclusively speaks verse). Why might Shakespeare shift gears in certain scenes, and what would the verse help us 'hear' in the characters' ideas/sentiments? NOTE: if you're having trouble seeing the difference, remember that verse looks different on the page. After 10 syllables, it goes to the next line; prose goes on until the end of the page.

Q3: There are a LOT of characters in this play, even though the play really centers around four: Beatrice, Benedick, Don Pedro, and Claudio. So what do you make of the subplot of Don John and his scheming? Why does he hate everyone else in the play, and what is the end goal of his mischief? In other words, what is he doing in a comedy that is "much ado about nothing"?

Q4: Comedy is much harder to understand, generally, than tragedy, since it's much more topical. A lot of the references are lost, and the wit/humor dated. Find a passage in the first two acts that you DO NOT understand, and try to explain what doesn't make sense about it. Do the footnotes help explain the meaning? And once you get the general meaning, does it become funny? Why or why not? 

Q3: 

For Thursday: Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing (2013)

NOTE: Even though we’ll finish the film on Thursday, we’ll watch the largest part of it in class on Tuesday, so you can easily answer these questions for Thursday’s class. We’ll discuss them a bit after the film as well.

ALSO, if you missed class, come on Thursday and you can see enough of the film to answer the questions below.  

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: Though this version is utterly faithful to Shakespeare’s text, it makes a number of modern adaptations, some of which are quite unusual. Explain why you think they decided to do ONE or ALL of the following: (a) the modern, Hollywood setting; (b) black and white cinematography; (c) the low-budget, almost documentary feel; (d) all American actors—not a British accent in sight!

Q2: How do the film/actors help sell the comedy of Shakespeare’s play? In other words, what meta-textual elements do they bring out to help us see, understand, or expand the lines? Also, what made you laugh that wasn’t technically in the play? Do you think this is necessary to make the comedy work, or was it just a bonus?

Q3: What scene or moment in the film did you feel resisted translation the most? In other words, how might the modern setting and the non-Shakespearean actors have almost gotten in the way of understanding? Also, how might a more traditional approach make sense of this scene (or maybe, why might reading the play be an advantage)?

Q4: Which actor or actors do you feel most embodied their character, and helped us see them as a real person, and not just a handful of lines? What did they do that will help you ‘see’ this character when you read the play itself? Be as specific as possible 

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome to the Course!

Welcome to ECU's Fall 2024 seminar on Shakespeare! This course will explore why Shakespeare continues to be the most-performed dramatist worldwide (even in languages other than English!), and why, like Jane Austen’s novels, you can change almost everything in the text and the play will usually survive intact. To understand this, we will attempt to uncover the unique DNA of Shakespeare’s writing, by examining five key texts (both comedies and tragedies) and some of their big-screen adaptations. Ultimately, I want to discover what is more important for Shakespeare: the story or the words? The setting or the characters? His time or our own? As Stanley Wells suggests in the quote above, Shakespeare seems to have done more than write plays; he created a mythology of language and character. So why do we still believe in his work, even if most people don’t particularly know or like it? Why does Shakespeare still haunt our 21^st century American lives?

Make sure to buy a copy of the five plays we're reading in class (any edition, though Folger is the most helpful IMHO): The Taming of the Shrew, Much Ado About Nothing, King Lear, Macbeth, and The Tempest. We'll also be reading a supplementary text, Wells' William Shakespeare: A Very Short Introduction, which will help us contextualize where these plays came from, and whether or not they are still tied to their distinct moment in the past. The bookstore is currently out of this latter text, but assures me that new copies will arrive this week. Stay tuned! 

NOTE: The posts below this one are from previous semesters, and though they won't reflect the work we're doing this semester, feel free to browse!