Final essays, due on Tuesday morning, Nov. 26

Please choose one of the following prompts and write an essay in response, using passages from Shakespeare's plays to support your views.

TWO MONOLOGUES IN HAMLET
Although many statements by Hamlet seem definitive, two are especially powerful with respect to profound questions about life and death.  One is the iconic "To be or not to be..." soliloquy (III, sc. 1).  Less well known yet equally profound in its way is a section of prose dialogue near the end of the play (see, especially, the text in bold type), from Act V, sc. 2:

HORATIO

You will lose this wager, my lord.

HAMLET

I do not think so: since he went into France, I
have been in continual practise: I shall win at the
odds. But thou wouldst not think how ill all's here
about my heart: but it is no matter.

HORATIO

Nay, good my lord,--

HAMLET

It is but foolery; but it is such a kind of
gain-giving, as would perhaps trouble a woman.

HORATIO

If your mind dislike any thing, obey it: I will
forestall their repair hither, and say you are not
fit.

HAMLET

Not a whit, we defy augury: there's a special
providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now,
'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be
now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the
readiness is all: since no man has aught of what he
leaves, what is't to leave betimes?

Think about Hamlet's philosophy.  Is it life-affirming?  Death-affirming?  How do these statements help to define Hamlet's evolving understanding of life and death?

THE ROLE OF MONOLOGUES AND SOLILOQUIES IN TRAGEDY
The Greek philosopher Aristotle defined tragedy, at least in part, as rising action:  a tumult of events, complicated or crushing, that rises to a feverish climax.  But if we accept Aristotle's action-based view of tragedy, how do we, as audiences or readers, accommodate the many interruptions of the action in Shakespeare in the form of monologues and soliloquies?  How do these breaks in the action ultimately contribute anything to the theatrical force of rising action?  Choose at least two monologues from Shakespearean tragedy and discuss them in relation to rising action.

HAMLET AND IAGO
Arguably, Hamlet and Iago are two of Shakespeare's most intelligent characters.  How does their intelligence reveal itself in Hamlet and Othello?  And how does Shakespeare expect us to value human intelligence in these two great plays?  Is intelligence a virtue or a character defect?  A friend or an enemy?

or...

FATHERS & SONS IN Henry 4, Pt. 1 (1599) and HAMLET (1600-'01)
Shakespeare clearly wanted to explore the theme of fathers and sons in his turn-of-the-century plays.  In a typed essay of 2-3 pages, compare and contrast the theme of fathers and sons in these two plays.  Consider "fathers" who are not necessarily blood relatives to their "sons" -- Falstaff, Yorick, others.  Also, consider the roles of father-and-son foils -- contrasting pairs such as Hotspur/Northumberland in Henry 4, Pt. 1, and Laertes/Polonius or Old Fortinbras/Young Fortinbras in Hamlet.

For Friday, Nov. 15

Please read Act I, sc. 3, of 1 Henry IV.   Politics.

Pronunciation guide:  'Worcester' = WOOS-ter  (just as, when you visit England, 'Leicester' = LES-ter).  There's also 'Blount' (as in, Sir Walter Blount) = BLUNT.   Don't ask me why!  I'm innocent!  I just try to report what they say.

Family connections within the Percy Family, a powerful feudal clan in the north of England:

The head of the war-like clan -- albeit confusingly at first -- is Henry Percy, Lord of Northumberland, once a loyal ally to King Henry IV (Bolingbroke).

Northumberland's son is -- ahhh!  Nooo! -- also Henry Percy; however, this hot-tempered & unruly young Percy is easier to remember thanks to his nickname:  Hotspur.

Northumberland's son-in-law and Hotspur's brother-in-law (he's married to Hotspur's sister) is Mortimer.  Mortimer is the Percy who campaigned unsuccessfully against the Welsh and is now a prisoner of the savage Welsh commander, Owen Glendower.

Once a trusted advisor to King Henry IV (Bolingbroke), but now a freelance advisor, ever more closely allied with the Percy family, is the ominous Wooster (*spelled 'Worcester'!!).

THE POINT?  BRITISH KIDS KNOW ALL THIS STUFF AS THEY WALK THROUGH THE DOOR OF THE THEATER.  Before the curtain goes up, they know these relationships in much the same way American audiences know the relationships when they see the musical "1776."  Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence.  George Washington commanded the Revolutionary Army and served as the first U.S. President, with John Adams, of Massachusetts, as his V.P.  James Madison was married to a woman named Dolly.  Where an American audience would take these things for granted, a British audience might need a wee glossary for "1776"... much as American students do when they first encounter a Shakespearean history.  Voila.

For Thursday, Nov. 14

Please read all of Act I, sc. 2.  Hal's & Falstaff's dialogue -- largely in prose -- should feel similar to the words of Sir Toby and Sir Andrew:  it's back to the language of taverns, brawls, insults, & carousing.

Here's my rough time-line.  Henry IV (Bolingbroke) usurped the English throne in, or anyway near, the year 1400 (...and yes, I did misspell the word 'Bolingbroke' in my crude chart below -- sorry!):

Sonnet Presentations on Tuesday

On Tuesday we should hear from all four groups.  (See the group listings, below.)

Here's one way to set up five slides in your group's PowerPoint:

Slide 1.  YOUR SONNET, free & clear of any notation -- a nice way to share your reading.

Slide 2.  FORM(A) -- The verse structure:  most likely, three quatrains and a rhymed couplet.
[But does your sonnet "set up" more effectively & logically as 8 + 6 (instead of 4 + 4 + 4 + 2)??  If so, you might be smart to look up an earlier sonnet form, the Petrarchan sonnet.  The Italian Renaissance poet Petrarch started the "sonnet craze" a couple of hundred years before Shakespeare, and the Italian structure of 8 + 6 has survived -- not only in certain of Shakespeare's sonnets but also in sonnets from the 17th through the 20th centuries.]

Slide 3.  FORM(B) -- Scansion in iambic pentameter:  the strong and weak beats, and what the resulting points of emphasis signify to your group about Shakespeare's intentions.

Slide 4.  LANGUAGE -- Another "map" of the sonnet, this time highlighting Shakespeare's word play.

Slide 5.  IDEAS.  Your interpretation of the main idea, or ideas, of this poem.

Naturally you're welcome to reshape this 5-part set-up!  You don't have to slavishly follow what's here: it's only a suggestion.  Make it your own!

See the previous blog for more specifics about Form, Language, and Ideas.

New Sonnet Work-Groups: #76 (Elizabeth, Grace, Matt); #129 (Maria, Emilee, Sonya); #138 (Nathan, Alexis, Peter); #149 (Olivia, Sydney, Sarah)

Shakespeare's sonnets are alive & well online.  See, especially, the MIT Complete Works of Shakespeare (.edu), where it's easy to find them all.  

Following is an analytical point of departure for your new group.  We'll work on these four Sonnets on Monday, and then present (in Deluxe Powerpoints, I'm hoping) on Tuesday, Nov. 12.

Comment on the intersections of Form, Language, and Ideas in Shakespeare’s Sonnets.

Form:  We can observe form in certain identifiable groups of lines:  in quatrains or couplets.  (And doesn’t the rhyme scheme shape our sense of each sonnet’s form?)  Form also includes scansion:  the “sound-scape” of each line in iambic pentameter.  And yes!, as our class has astutely observed, one line sometimes “spills over” to the next, overflowing, in a poet’s move called ‘enjambment’.  Form is also discernible in the shapes or figures within a given line – in the repetitions, mirror-images, juxtapositions, and other grammatical (i.e., syntactic) tricks W.S. loved to use.

Language:  Discuss Shakespeare’s grab bag of word play in diction, imagery, double-meanings, puns, dirty jokes, ambiguities, sly suggestions, self put-downs, and more.  Try to connect the persuasive power of Shakespeare’s amazing comparisons – his similes, metaphors, and analogies – to his claims about life and love.

Ideas:  How do Shakespeare’s figures - his forms, his language -- uphold his ideas?  How do his shapes and games – his formal discipline; his playfulness in words – support his heartfelt claims about people he loves (the young man; the dark lady), or about himself?  Keep in mind that Shakespeare, too, is a major character in these poems.  They are not limited to the two people he seems to adore:  they are also variously self-reflective, self-critical, and self-affirming.

(Food for thought... Are his sonnets soliloquies, spoken in solitude; or are they monologues, spoken directly to another person?  Depending on your answer, his rhetorical stance -- private reflection vs. shared address or dialogue -- can determine much about a poem.)

Sonnet 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
    So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
    So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

Sonnet 73

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.
    This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
    To love that well which thou must leave ere long.