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clo_againGeneric instability in Shakespeare's plays. Thoughts? It's that or 'to what extent... imitations intended to deceive, can, paradoxically, reveal the truth'.
I love third year. Really. Not.
edit: Actually... on reflection, I'm quite fond of the counterfeit one. But with a term of plays involving Midsummer Night's Dream and Taming of the Shrew and Merchant of Venice, I'm not so sure that everyone won't be doing it. Which, though it may be an easier question, makes it a harder essay because the tutor'll have seen it all before.
Decisions. Argh.
1. ‘Sometimes I am king; / Then reason makes me wish myself a beggar, /And so I am. (Richard II 5.5.32-4). Consider Shakespeare’s representation of masterless men in any two texts.
2.‘Then God be blest, it is the blessed sun,
But sun it is not, when you say it is not;
And the moon changes even as your mind.
What you will have it named, even that it is,
And so it shall be for Katherine.’ (The Taming of the Shrew 4.6.19-23)
Using Katherine’s lines about the power to name as a starting point, discuss how Shakespeare’s texts make active use of the slipperiness of language to explore issues of power and / or gender and sexuality.
3. ‘Shakespeare and his fellow dramatists were not fussy about keeping their genres and influences pure - they picked up traditions, plots and characters as indiscriminately as magpies, and the boundaries of Renaissance dramatic genres are gloriously messy’ (Linda Woodbridge). Discuss the generic instability of Shakespeare’s plays in the light of this statement.
4. ‘ O that you were yourself! But love, you are
No longer yours than you yourself here live.
Against this coming end you should prepare
And your sweet semblance to some other give.’ (Sonnets 13)
How do Shakespeare’s texts disturb or renegotiate the binary opposition of ‘self’ and ‘Other’? Discuss with reference to any two texts.
5. ‘I am Revenge, sent from th’infernal kingdom
To ease the gnawing culture of thy mind
By working wreakful vengeance on thy foes.’
(Titus Andronicus 5.2.30-2)
Explore how any two texts you have studied depict revenge as a understandable impulse, evoking sympathy with avengers, but simultaneously raise objections to revenge in our hearts and minds.
6. ‘Morocco: What have we here?
A carrion death, within whose empty eye
There is a written scroll. I’ll read the writing.’
(The Merchant of Venice 2.7.62-4)
In what ways do representations of the body and the written word play off one another in the Shakespeare texts you have read?
7. 'In this play [2 Henry IV], even more cruelly than in 1 Henry IV, moral values – justice, order, civility – are secured paradoxically through the apparent generation of their subversive contraries' (Stephen Greenblatt). Discuss the relationship between I and II Henry IV in the light of Greenblatt’s opinion.
8. ‘Aaron, arm thy heart, and fit thy thoughts
To mount aloft with thy imperial mistress.’ (Titus Andronicus 2.1.12-13)
From your reading this term, would you agree that Shakespeare’s texts are not about the theme of transcendent love but the cultural and sexual politics of desire?
9. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Theseus refers to an ‘everlasting bond of fellowship’ between him and Hippolyta (1.1.85). Examine the different ways in which Shakespeare’s texts dramatise networks of emotional and legal bonds.
10. ‘Counterfeit? I lie, I am no counterfeit… but the true and perfect image of life indeed’ (2Henry IV 5.4.113) To what extent do Shakespeare’s texts endorse Falstaff’s view that counterfeits, imitations intended to deceive, can, paradoxically, reveal the truth?
11. ‘I wasted time and now doth time waste me’ (Richard II 5.5.41). Is the relationship between human activity and time always represented in negative terms in the Shakespearean texts you have read?
12. ‘I will wear a garment all of blood
And stain my favours in a bloody mask,
Which, wash'd away, shall scour my shame with it’ (1Henry IV 3.2.135-7)
Prince Hal’s words alert us to the complexity of blood as a signifier in Shakespeare’s texts. Explore how this operates in any two texts studied this term.
I love third year. Really. Not.
edit: Actually... on reflection, I'm quite fond of the counterfeit one. But with a term of plays involving Midsummer Night's Dream and Taming of the Shrew and Merchant of Venice, I'm not so sure that everyone won't be doing it. Which, though it may be an easier question, makes it a harder essay because the tutor'll have seen it all before.
Decisions. Argh.
1. ‘Sometimes I am king; / Then reason makes me wish myself a beggar, /And so I am. (Richard II 5.5.32-4). Consider Shakespeare’s representation of masterless men in any two texts.
2.‘Then God be blest, it is the blessed sun,
But sun it is not, when you say it is not;
And the moon changes even as your mind.
What you will have it named, even that it is,
And so it shall be for Katherine.’ (The Taming of the Shrew 4.6.19-23)
Using Katherine’s lines about the power to name as a starting point, discuss how Shakespeare’s texts make active use of the slipperiness of language to explore issues of power and / or gender and sexuality.
3. ‘Shakespeare and his fellow dramatists were not fussy about keeping their genres and influences pure - they picked up traditions, plots and characters as indiscriminately as magpies, and the boundaries of Renaissance dramatic genres are gloriously messy’ (Linda Woodbridge). Discuss the generic instability of Shakespeare’s plays in the light of this statement.
4. ‘ O that you were yourself! But love, you are
No longer yours than you yourself here live.
Against this coming end you should prepare
And your sweet semblance to some other give.’ (Sonnets 13)
How do Shakespeare’s texts disturb or renegotiate the binary opposition of ‘self’ and ‘Other’? Discuss with reference to any two texts.
5. ‘I am Revenge, sent from th’infernal kingdom
To ease the gnawing culture of thy mind
By working wreakful vengeance on thy foes.’
(Titus Andronicus 5.2.30-2)
Explore how any two texts you have studied depict revenge as a understandable impulse, evoking sympathy with avengers, but simultaneously raise objections to revenge in our hearts and minds.
6. ‘Morocco: What have we here?
A carrion death, within whose empty eye
There is a written scroll. I’ll read the writing.’
(The Merchant of Venice 2.7.62-4)
In what ways do representations of the body and the written word play off one another in the Shakespeare texts you have read?
7. 'In this play [2 Henry IV], even more cruelly than in 1 Henry IV, moral values – justice, order, civility – are secured paradoxically through the apparent generation of their subversive contraries' (Stephen Greenblatt). Discuss the relationship between I and II Henry IV in the light of Greenblatt’s opinion.
8. ‘Aaron, arm thy heart, and fit thy thoughts
To mount aloft with thy imperial mistress.’ (Titus Andronicus 2.1.12-13)
From your reading this term, would you agree that Shakespeare’s texts are not about the theme of transcendent love but the cultural and sexual politics of desire?
9. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Theseus refers to an ‘everlasting bond of fellowship’ between him and Hippolyta (1.1.85). Examine the different ways in which Shakespeare’s texts dramatise networks of emotional and legal bonds.
10. ‘Counterfeit? I lie, I am no counterfeit… but the true and perfect image of life indeed’ (2Henry IV 5.4.113) To what extent do Shakespeare’s texts endorse Falstaff’s view that counterfeits, imitations intended to deceive, can, paradoxically, reveal the truth?
11. ‘I wasted time and now doth time waste me’ (Richard II 5.5.41). Is the relationship between human activity and time always represented in negative terms in the Shakespearean texts you have read?
12. ‘I will wear a garment all of blood
And stain my favours in a bloody mask,
Which, wash'd away, shall scour my shame with it’ (1Henry IV 3.2.135-7)
Prince Hal’s words alert us to the complexity of blood as a signifier in Shakespeare’s texts. Explore how this operates in any two texts studied this term.
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no subject
Date: 2007-01-09 10:41 pm (UTC)Is what I would do considering what plays you're doing.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-10 01:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-10 12:31 am (UTC)Fiona
no subject
Date: 2007-01-10 01:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-10 05:06 pm (UTC)Fiona
no subject
Date: 2007-01-10 05:23 pm (UTC)I go by what my tutor said at A-level; the question you look at and first go "Now *that's* interesting" is usually the one you end up doing. That and trying to avoid the ones everyone else might be doing (my money's on 8 this time, though I get the unfortunate feeling my counterfeit one will be pretty popular too.)
no subject
Date: 2007-01-10 04:54 am (UTC)Hmmm...Maybe my holiday improvement should also include reading some Shakespeare. We do have an anthology somewhere... Recommendations?
no subject
Date: 2007-01-10 01:39 pm (UTC)Hhm. Much Ado About Nothing is probably one of my favourites and is pretty easy to read too (lots of snarky goodness). A Midsummer Night's Dream for the total crazy of the faeries and love potions. Twelfth Night, Othello and The Tempest are ones I've always wanted to read but we're not doing them until later this term, so not sure I can recommend them yet. ^_^ If you wanted something more hard-going, Hamlet drags sometimes but it's been referenced so often, by *everything*, that you end up recognising quotes all over the place and that's awesome. :)
no subject
Date: 2007-01-10 08:35 pm (UTC)