Shakespeare Class Endgame: POTLUCK!

In order to give you the utmost flexibility in your choice of final assignments for this course, I offer you 3 ways to complete your coursework. Please choose ONE of the following options, to be turned in via email on the day the final would have been scheduled, May 8. The final project is due in my inbox by 11:59 pm. 

1.  10+ pp. Research Paper.

For this option, please choose a specific question related to Shakespeare Studies to research in detail. Your paper, while of course taking part in a preexisting scholarly conversation, will have an original thesis argument that you support with textual evidence from the relevant play/plays and at least 6 other works of scholarship.

2. Two Smaller Papers, approx 5 pp. each.

For this option, choose two of the following assignment options from the blog:

Lear Textual Study

Production Analysis

Word Study Paper: in order to do this paper, you may need to modify your study to include a close reading of a specific word within the context of Shakespeare's work, making a cogent argument about what you see the word doing during the period and in Shakespeare.

Reception Study

Source Study

3. For Teachers: Shakespeare Unit Design.

see this post for the assignment.

  

Teachers: Shakespeare Unit Plan

For this final assignment option, please design a unit that you can use when you become a teacher. Craft a unit plan that outlines a set of Shakespeare-related assignments and lesson plans targeted at your chosen age group. Use the unit template that you are most comfortable with, but don't forget to include at least 8 lesson plans in sequence with learning objectives, classroom activities, assessment, and assignments or homework activities.

The work and time you expend on this assignment should be equivalent to that spent on a conventional final research paper. Use your best judgement.

I strongly encourage you to make use of the resources I make available on this blog as you plan your unit.

Lear Response Paper: Edition Comparison, due April 15

 A textual study: compare a passage in the First Quarto with the corresponding one in the First Folio, then glance at the conflated version. Do the differences change your understanding of the passage? Which seems to fit the play’s overall energy and message better, in your opinion? This exercise will require close reading and critical thought.  

Please feel free to refer to the ‘textual note’ on p 2332 to orient yourself to the controversy and editorial decisions resulting from the wide textual variation between different versions of this play. 

You may also wish to explore the online facsimilies of the actual editions of Q1 and F1 using the resources I list in this post. 

response: Close reading a joke, due tue Apr 10

Add caption

All of Shakespeare's plays--but especially his comedies--are packed with verbal humor. Beatrice and Benedick are compulsive jokesters, as are most of the other characters in the play, either on purpose or accident. For this exercise, please choose a passage in Much Ado that you either find funny, or whose joke you don't understand. Try to unpack the gag, running joke, or quibble's layers of meaning, and see what you can find. In the end, is the joke serious? Is it insulting? Is it cosmic? Can you connect it with other jokes/themes in this play or others? Does your analysis make the joke funnier or does it change your understanding of the character, for better or worse?

Above all, have fun!

Keats' Letter on Negative Capability and other critical readings

Harold Copping as Hamlet

read Keats on Negative Capability here:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/essay/237836?page=2

Read Freud on Hamlet here: 

http://producer.csi.edu/cdraney/archive-courses/fall09/175/etexts/repression-hamlet_freud.pdf

Read T.S. Eliot on Hamlet here: 

http://www.bartleby.com/200/sw9.html

Suchet, Stewart, Shylock

Old, but awesome! For this week's response, watch this video, and respond to something these master actors say about the pressures and anxieties of playing Shylock.

Falstaff, Carnival, and changing times, due Feb 25

Falstaff, one of Shakespeare's great characters, embodies in many ways, the long tradition of Carnival in European culture. In what ways does Falstaff's misrule stand in contrast to other cultural values in the play, like kingship, patriotism, sobriety, and temperance? 

If Falstaff was played by Will Kempe, does that change the way you read his character? Can you apply what you know about the evolving tradition of clowning in the period to a reading of this character? Does Hal's ultimate abandonment of the life Falstaff represents echo the period's turning away from carnival traditions? Is this a loss or a gain?  

write your commonplace notes in doge? Why not? Many fun. wow.

the real assignment for Tue is below!

See here: http://the-toast.net/2014/02/06/linguist-explains-grammar-doge-wow/

Fourth Response, due Feb 11: The History Play

You have likely encountered Shakespearean tragedy and comedy--the black and white flags, respectively-- that would have flown over London's theaters to alert playgoers to the day's offerings.

This is perhaps the first time you have spent any time under the red flag. What do you think? Can you identify major differences between the history play and the other two genres? Are the characters treated differently? Is the tone of the play different?

3rd response, due Jan 30: Titus Andronicus in Context

Titus Andronicus is a very difficult play for a modern audience. Many people dislike it so much that they can't believe Shakespeare wrote it! But it was one of his most popular plays during his lifetime. Why such a disparity of response? This assignment asks you to imagine what it was that made Elizabethan and Jacobean audiences love this play. Beyond the violence, what else might have appealed to them? Why did later public opinion turn against the tragedy? This assignment requires you to make an imaginative leap of faith and to really put yourself in an Early Modern person's shoes. Does this thought exercise change the way you think about this play?

Also, for fun, a link to an piece in the Smithsonian about Julie Taymor, who directed the film of Titus Andronicus as well as the Broadway Lion King.  In this interview, she talks about those, and MSND. 
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/why-shakespeare-is-julie-taymors-superhero-180947631/

Response paper due in commonplace book by the 23: Character Study

A Midsummer Night's Dream showcases some intriguing, yet frustrating, characters. What's bothering Titania, really? How can Bottom be so asinine and yet so perceptive? Why can't we tell the four lovers apart? What motivates Puck? Who is Theseus?

For this short response paper (to be stored in your Commonplace Book and submitted for review on the 23rd of January) choose a character from this play to explore.  What do you find interesting about her? If you were to perform her part, how would you interpret her words and actions? Is she believable or overblown, flat or complex? Does she bug you? Why?

The Sonnets

The sonnets, often with a facsimile of the 1609 Quarto Version. It also includes sonnets by Shakespeare's contemporaries:
http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/printing

An overview of the sonnets' history and controversy:
http://public.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/shakespeare/sonnets.html

an awesome hypertextual concordance:
http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~rac101/concord/texts/sonnets/

searchable sonnets: http://www.samdutton.com/shearch/

This allows you to compare sonnets side by side:
http://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/views/sonnets/sonnets.php

for the language buffs, the sonnets translated into Latin:
http://www.slu.edu/colleges/AS/languages/classical/latin/tchmat/pedagogy/latinitas/dv/dv.html

Reflection on Stage or Screen Performance

Chances are you've seen Shakespeare on screen, and likely on stage too. This reflection (at least one is due, but you are welcome to write more) asks you to write a bit about an adaptation or production you recently observed. How does the staging, the actors' performances, the music, the era of the production, and the screenplay choices effect the text of the play?

Here is a list of MANY different screen adaptations:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_William_Shakespeare_film_adaptations

Theater Company Performance

One of the major requirements for this course asks you to form a playing company of approximately 5 other students. For information on the playing companies of the period, see:
http://shakespearecontext.blogspot.com/2014/01/contemporary-performance.html
You will be responsible for staging one 25 minute scene from a play of your choice, as well as preparing impromptu readings in class. Your group can sign up for a time slot in the semester for your performance, which must be staged and memorized.

As a group, you will write a 5 page reflection document addressing the following questions, and anything else you might add. What portion of the play did you choose? How did you decide upon the play? What are the strengths of the members of your company? What choices did you make in your staging of the play? Did you include musical interludes or non-verbal performance? Why or why not?
 Now that you have performed your piece, what would you do differently the second time? Has this experience changed your perspective on Shakespeare's plays at all?

To be turned in on the class period after the performance

Contemporary Performance

Henslowe's Diary: the personal record of the owner of The Rose theater:

http://www.henslowe-alleyn.org.uk/essays/henslowediary.html

http://books.google.com/books/about/Henslowe_s_Diary_Text.html?id=3jYVAAAAYAAJ

Primary sources related to contemporary stagings:

http://shakespearestaging.berkeley.edu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=31&Itemid=191

On Playing Companies:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playing_company

to sense what has been lost:
http://www.lostplays.org/index.php/Main_Page

reviews of current period productions on Broadway:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/11/theater/reviews/twelfth-night-and-richard-iii-with-mark-rylance.html?_r=0

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/events/theatre/twelfth-night-richard-iii-belasco-theatre

Word-Study Exercise:

Choose 3 words over the course of the semester and do a thorough word-study on each using the LEME, the OED, the glossary and bibliographical trail from your readings and other sources. Prepare a response (in your commonplace book) that maps your discoveries, walks us through the origin (etymology) of the word, its history and meaning in EME, and, if applicable, its modern life. 

Questions to ask:

• What about this word intrigued you? Did you know the word before? Can you describe these

qualities to your classmates?

• Does the word exist in modern usage? If so, does it have the same meaning? If not, why do you think the meaning has changed?
• What is the etymology of the word? Does its adoption tell us something about England’s history?
•  Did it replace another word with a synonymous meaning? If so, why?
• What kind of work is it doing in Shakespeare’s oeuvre? Did he coin it? Is it used elsewhere at the time? Does he seem aware of the multiple

resources:

http://shakespearecontext.blogspot.com/2014/01/basic-resources.html

Reception Study

As an English major, you probably have a favorite author, and chances are that author had something to say about Shakespeare. For this short critical essay, show how a later author engages in a dialogue with 'The Immortal Bard.' Does your author resent, dislike, admire, or worship Shakespeare? Can you show specific moments where this influence is most palpable? 

One resource:

http://shakespearecontext.blogspot.com/2014/01/pre-20th-century-critics-on-shakespeare.html

This critical paper will be 5-6 pp, double-spaced. 

Shakespeare's Sources

Folger primary source list: http://www.folger.edu/eduPrimSrcArch.cfm?CFID=10450826&CFTOKEN=444ef60a8865b763-78F62897-3473-0E4E-CC6E2ECA695CC169

a helpful graph organized by work:

http://shakespeare-w.com/english/shakespeare/source.html

Source Study

Shakespeare did not come up with his plotlines; nearly all are based on at least one source. For this paper, please compare one specific aspect of a Shakespearean play with what you find in one of its sources (e.g. Hamlet's cunning in Saxo v. Shakespeare).

The first place to look for sources is in the intro and critical notes to the plays in Norton. 

Some online resources are listed here:

Holinshed: 

http://www.cems.ox.ac.uk/holinshed/

http://shakespeare-w.com/english/shakespeare/source.html

Folger primary source list: http://www.folger.edu/eduPrimSrcArch.cfm?CFID=10450826&CFTOKEN=444ef60a8865b763-78F62897-3473-0E4E-CC6E2ECA695CC169

http://shakespearecontext.blogspot.com/2014/01/basic-resources.html

This critical paper will be 5-6 pp, double-spaced. 

Your Commonplace Book

Early Modern scholars and artists often collected fragments of things that interested them, ideas, and quotations in journal-like collections called Commonplace Books: http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/reading/commonplace.html

see http://www.stevenberlinjohnson.com/2010/04/the-glass-box-and-the-commonplace-book.html

for an explanation of the uses of the Commonplace Book. 

Also, 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonplace_book

For this class, you will start one of your own. It can be analog (in a journal reserved for the task) or digital (in a blog format so you have some creative freedom), but the idea is to start keeping scraps, bits and pieces of quotations, ideas that others generate, or things that strike you as interesting from this Class on Shakespeare. 

You may wish to start with some thematic interests; your first assignment will be to identify some of the motifs, ideas, or themes you have run across in Shakespeare's work that you find compelling. Then begin collecting text, even drawing things, musing, charting, etc. 

The Commonplace Book will become a record of your hunches, ideas, and theories in this class, and you will use it later to generate critical writing. 

These will be due on Thursday every other week, starting on the 23rd of January.