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Day

Date

Homework

for Today

Links
T 8/20

Opening activities; PowerPoint

  1. II. Much Ado About Nothing: Readaround Part I

Films

  • Tennant version: 46:00
  • Branagh: 36:00

 
R 8/22

Assignment due today:

  • READ Shakespeare from Page to Stage (SfPtS): Much Ado About Nothing, Act 1
  • READ Ghose, Much Ado: Language and Writing (MALW): 29-49 (See BB for this week)
  • STUDY Quiz guide: What to study for today

Discussion

  • Setting, language, and wit
 See blackboard for audio``
 
T 8/27

Assignment due today:

Quote: "Shakespeare’s plays are cross-hatched with verbal echoes and submerged patterns, all of which contribute to their rich tapestry of meaning."

Activity:

  • Imagery Analysis. Looking for imagery and rhetoric.

Imagery: Stuff you'll need

Context, Language I

Context, Language II
R 8/29

Assignments DUE TODAY

Discussion

Useful links abouto Peformance and Shakespeare's stage
 
T 9/3

Assignments due today

Discussion/ Activity

  • Practice reading Shakespeare: verbs

Practice reading Shakespeare: verbs
R 9/5

Assignments due today

  • READ SfPtS: Much Ado, Act 5
  • READ Ghose MALW: 123-126
  • REMINDER: Imagery Analysis due by 9/10 (Tuesday) on blackboard

Discussion/ Activity

  • Research Papers and Writing Matters of Ghose
  
 
T 9/10

Assignments Due Today

  • READ SfPtS: Othello Act 1
  • READ Macguire Othello Language and Writing (OLW) chapter 1 (19-44)
  • STUDY Quiz guide: What to study for today

Discussion/ Acitivity

Reminder: Imagery Analysis Form for Othello due September 25
R 9/12

Assignments Due Today

Discussion/ Activity

  • 2.1.220-310 relay
  • 2.3.245 (film 1:03.18)

 

  
 
T 9/17

Assignments Due Today

Discussion/ Activity

  • 3.3.90-end globe 1.18.20 (Parker 48.58)
  • 3.4 pass the handkerchief; read and watch lines 32 (Othello enters) to 98 (Othello exits)

 

Imagery:

Soul, heaven, hell, damned, faith, Moore, handerchief, honest, whore/strumpet, love, monster, hate, devil, jealous, black, white, military, animal (avoid), cannibalism, ocean, witchcraft, prostitution, clothing, travel (exotic), jewelry, robbery, poison, nature, art, plants, monstrous birth (also "say," "and yet," and modals)

Rhetoric: puns, hendiadys, antithesis, etc.

Context: Prodigy books and monster babies

 
R 9/19

Assignments Due Today

  • READ SfPtS: Othello Act 4
  • READ OLW: 154-178
  • STUDY Quiz guide: What to study for today

Activity

  • 4.1 Globe version 2: 9:00
  • 4:2,3
  • 5.2 45.14

Othello, U.S. History, and Performance: Should Othello be Performed in the U.S.?
 
T 9/24

Assignments Due Today

Discussion/ Activity

  • Starting at the End
  • Roderigo: 4.2, 5.1 (Globe version 2:24-28; 36:20-44:30)
  • Continue into the Beginning of 5.2

ideas to think about:

  • Venice and the Islamic World (Metropolitan Museum)
    • Mercantilism
    • Colonialism and boundaries (Venetians as "defenders of the faith")
  • Handkerchiefs, Venetian fabric, Women and exotic possessions/ colonization ("Thy bed, lust-stain'd, shall with lust's blood be spotted" 5.1)
  • Turning Turk in Othello (Jonathan Bate) (otello/ottoman rhyme)
    • Knolles's Generall Historie of the Turkes: Othello is a Janizary in reverse, not a Christian turned Muslim fighting against Christians, but a Muslim turned Christian fighting against Muslims
    • Arbitariness of identity: "I am not what I am" ; "It is as sure as you are Roderigo, /Were I the Moor, I would not be Iago"; "That's he that was Othello: here I am"
R 9/26

Discussion/ Activity

  • Discussion of Paper 1: Bring both OLW and MALW, as well as your first two imagery analyses
  • Othello: Writing Matters
  • Thesis Generation
  
 
T 10/1

Introduction to Twelfth Night (Act 1)

Assigments due today:

Discussion, Activity

II. Twelfth Night Act I

  • Read 1.1, 1.2 together
  • Exercise on Blocking
  • Explication "willow speech"
  • 1:5 (19:50 film)

VI. Two close readings: 1.3 (willow speech) and 2.4 (gender)

 

 Context:Sources and Music
R 10/3

Assignments due today

  • READ SfPtS: Twelfth Night, Act 2
  • WRITE and HAND IN: Thesis for Paper 1 due

Discussion/ Activity

  • Learn the catch "Hold thy peace thou knave" (see sheet music here)
  • 2.2 "I am the man"
  • Three versions of 2.3:
    • Globe 45.13
    • Supple 29.37; 34 (song)
    • Nunn 49:20
  • 2.4 Man to man (1:02)
  • 2.5 Malvolio gulling

Context/ Gender links

 
 
T 10/8

Assignments due today

  • READ SfPtS: Twelfth Night Act 3
  • READ STB: Comedy (see Blackboard)

Discussion

  • Genre and Comedy

Activity

I. Sword fighting (Shakespeare in love 1:05:59; She's the Man 1:06:50)

II. Challenge scene 3.2 (end), 3.4227-83 1:59:12 (Globe); 1:37:00 (Nunn); Sebastian arrives (2:08:50 Globe-2:14:20);

III. Cross-gartering (Nunn) 3.4 1:46 (Globe)

IV. Feste and Viola (handout); Olivia & Cesario (3.1) 1:33.06; 1:05:19 (She's the Man)

 

 

Useful links on Comedy as Genre
R 10/10 NO CLASS  
 
T 10/15 FALL BREAK: NO CLASS
R 10/17 FALL BREAK: NO CLASS
 
T 10/22

Assignments due today

  • READ: SfPtS: Twelfth Night Act 4

Activity:

I. Sword fighting (Shakespeare in love 1:05:59; She's the Man 1:06:50)

II. Challenge scene 3.2 (end), 3.4227-83 1:59:12 (Globe); 1:37:00 (Nunn); Sebastian arrives (2:08:50 Globe-2:14:20);

Discussion (comedy, continued):

  • New historicists' view of gender in Shakespeare:

    Is women's desire for independence a fantasy? do they rebel against fathers' authority only to submit to lover's authority, and is that submission the point of the play?
  • One-sex theory of gender

Links to discuss the concluding scene

 
R 10/24

Assignments due today

  • READ: SfPtS: Twelfth Night Act 5
  • HAND IN: Paper 1: Revised thesis with in-text support
  • SCHEDULE: IN-OFFICE CONFERENCE WITH TWO OTHER STUDENTS (YOU PICK)
  • Imagery Analysis due for Twelfth Night by TOMORROW (Friday 10/25) at mdnight
  
 
T 10/29 ADVISING DAY: NO CLASS
R 10/29-11/1 In-office conference with groups (scheduled T, W, R, F)
T 11/5

Assignments due today

  • READ: SfPtS: Macbeth Act 1

Discussion/ Activity

  1. Adding research to your paper to strengthen it (and reshaping your ideas)

Film / scene discussion

Act 1 Macbeth Film (Patrick Stewart version) 13:00-34

  • 1.1, 1.3 Witches language
  • 1.2 Description of Macbeth (seeds)
  • 1.4 (planting/growing) primogeniture
  • 1.5 Lady Macbeth, fertility and sterility [compare NFS]
  • 1.7 Macbeth and Lady: babies

Note: Imagery Analysis Form for Macbeth due November 21 (right before Thanksgiving)

Motifs and themes:manhood and gender, omens and prophecy, cannibalism; being and knowing; babies and compassion; clothing and disrobing; the metaphor of acting [Character or characterization as revealed in action or its representation]; oceans, dismemberment, architecture, birds, seeds and growing, eyes and hands, heath as psychological or liminal space

Key words: strange (16x; 2nd most of plays), bloody (most frequent), night (4th most); most common substantive words are now, time, fear, self, man, well, why, great (not including titles and names)

Phrase: Give me your hand (tragedies and late comedies)

Historical forces in conflict:

  • Definitions of manhood
  • Military values vs. courtly values
  • Meritocracy (medieval Scotland) vs. absolute monarchy (early modern)
  • What is reality? Supernatural vs psychological
  • Acting vs being

 

 
R 11/7

Assignments due today

  • SfPtS: Macbeth Act 2

Discussion/ Activity: Macbeth Acts 2

  • 2.1 (32-63)
  • 2.2.1-73
  • 2.2.74-95
  • Acts 2.1, 2 (2.01.28);

Productions

  1. Fassbinder dagger scene 34.07
  2. stewart dagger scene 32.57
 
T 11/12

Assignments due today

  • READ: SfPtS Macbeth Act 3

Discussion/ Activity: Macbeth Act 3

Macbeth Film (Rupert Goold/Patrick Stewart & Kate Fleetwood version)

  • 1.1 18:00 "full of growing"
  • 3.1 Murderers (1:33:09)
  • 3.4 (1:18:40)
  • 3:5 (not in all editions)

Context/ Links:

Political links

Gender links

Textual history: 1.2, 3.5, 4.1 (40-65) revision or collaboration?

R 11/14

Assignments due today

  • SfPtS Macbeth Act 4
  • Hand in paper 1

Discussion/ Activity: Macbeth Acts 4

Macbeth Act 4 and 5

  • 4.1 Vision of Stewart kings and the babies (1:39)
    • 1-65 group reading
  • 4.3 Sounding of Macduff in England (1:49:30)

Writing an abstract: Links

 
 
T 11/19

Assignments due today

  • READ SfPtS Macbeth Act 5
  • DUE: Imagery Analysis due for Macbeth by tomorrow night (Wednesday)
  • BRING TO CLASS: Sources due for paper two (UPDATE: PLEASE LOAD THIS ON BLACKBOARD. link is not ACCESSIBLE IF YOU HAVEN'T TURNED IN YOUR PAPER)

Discussion/ Activity: Macbeth Acts 5

  • ***What is tragedy?***
  • 5.4 Birnham wood (2:14) [1.1 18:00 "full of growing"]
  • 5.5 Death of Lady Macbeth and "the cry of women" (18:40)
  • 5.8 (last scene): Malcom's final speech

Key words: strange (16x; 2nd most of plays), bloody (most frequent), night (4th most); most common substantive words are now, time, fear, self, man, well, why, great

Writing an abstract: Links
R 11/21

Assignments due today

  • DUE: Notes for Paper 2 (sources) due with revised thesis
  • READ: Merchant of Venice Act 1

Discussion/ Activity: Merchant of Venice -- Act 1

NO MORE IMAGERY ANALYSIS. (If you did it already, well then, you can have extra credit)

Imagery patterns

  • Self knowledge and division (“two headed Janus”)
  • Ocean/storm/voyage/navigation/ “sandy hour glass”
  • Religion, heresy, and conversion (as metaphors)
  • Money, venture, and investment
  • East (spices, exotic things)/ islands
  • Acting and stage-related things
  • Speech, words, and silence
  • language (native and foreign)/ quibbles/ riddles/legal language
  • Games (archery, hazard)
  • Animals (especially unclean animals like dogs)

Fashion
 
T 11/26 NO CLASS  
R 11/28 THANKSGIVING: NO CLASS
 
T 12/3

Assignments due today

  • READ: Merchant of Venice Act 2-3

Discussion/ Activity: Merchant of Venice --

  • Riddles: 2.1, 2.7 (Morocco), 2.9 (Aragon), 3.2 (Bassanio)
 Long Act 4
R 12/5

Assignments due today

  • WRITE Paper 2 due: Revision of Paper 1 due on final exam date
  • READ: Merchant of Venice, Acts 4-5
  • HAND IN: Imagery Analysis Form due tonight by midnight tomorrow night (Friday)

Discussion/ Activity: Prep for final exam

Patrick Stewart: Two ways of playing Shylock

  • Queer theory and homosocial connections
  • Shakespeare's villains
  • The rings
  • Subplot: Jessica
 
FINAL EXAMS    
W 12/11 12-2:30 PM: ENGLISH 390
F 13-Dec 12-2:30 PM: ENGLISH 333
F 13-Dec 8:30-11 ENGLISH 190
 
Dr. Mary Adams, instructor
last updated 21-nov-19