ENGL 323 A: Shakespeare to 1603

 

Winter 2022                                   Early  Shakespeare                                  W.R. Streitberger                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             MGH 251                                                                                                       A-510 Padelford

MW  12:30-2:20                                  English 323 A                                           streitwr@                                          

 

Text: The Norton Shakespeare, The Essential Plays/ Poems, 3rd ed.

 

The Course:  This is a junior-senior level majors course in which we will learn a fair amount about Shakespeare’s

life, times, theatre, and about the criticism of his plays. In his early period Shakespeare was primarily a writer of poetry and of comedies and histories. These poems and plays provide exciting reading challenges. They are brilliant, moving, meaningful, and profoundly unsettling. They complicate everything and simplify nothing. And because they have inspired literary artists from Emily Dickinson to Proust, playwrights from John Webster to Samuel Beckett, and philosophers and theorists like Hegel, Marx, Freud, Derrida, and Lacan, they have become woven into the fabric of our culture. We will focus on the artistry in Shakespeare’s texts—the use of language and poetry, the ideas of dramatic construction, the understanding of genre—to gain insight into how his poetry and plays deviate from conventional practices, how they attempt to shape his own culture’s social and political reality into art, how they make meaning, and how they produce emotional experience. We’ll begin with a selection of his Sonnets and then trace his development as a comic dramatist from the very early Two Gentlemen of Verona, through A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado About Nothing, and Twelfth Night. We’ll also read selections of Richard II, and 2 Henry IV and all of 1 Henry IV and Henry V. We’ll finish by reading Hamlet.

 

Requirements:  This is a lecture-discussion course. I will lecture from time to time, but we will discuss the material we read in every class period. I will assign leading study questions for each  class meeting. Your job is to give some purposeful thought to these questions. Come to class prepared to discuss them and other questions you may have. Participation is important. Mere attendance is insufficient. You need to contribute to our ongoing conversations--an opportunity to prod the conversation in a direction you find interesting. You must bring your text to every class meeting.

 

Project 1 (5 pp.). Write an essay focused on Much Ado About Nothing, 4.1.255-334. Be sure that you clearly address Shakespeare’s evolving understanding of friendship and heterosexual relationships in the Sonnets, Two Gentlemen, Midsummer Night’s Dream, Merchant of Venice, and Much Ado (40%).

Two group reports (1-2 pp.). Each group will be assigned to report on a question, one on 16 and one on 28 February. See the report topics below under 16 and 28 February. Contribute to the discussion in class on your group’s topic. Submit your 1-2 pp. reports to me. (20%).

Project 2 (5 pp.). Read Michele de Montaigne, “Of the Inconstancy of Our Actions”. Write an essay focused on Hamlet, 3.2. 153-213. Be sure that you clearly address Montaigne’s and Shakespeare’s concerns about the depth and complexity of human ‘interiority’, the inconsistency and unpredictability of human action, and how this is related to Shakespeare’s treatment of ‘thought’ and ‘action’ in the play (40%).

 

A       From/ fair/ est/ crea/ tures/ we/ de/ sire/ in/ crease,/      

B       That/ there/ by/ beau/ ty’s/ rose/ might/ nev/ er/ die,/     

A       But/ as/ the/ rip/ er/ should/ by/ time/ de/ cease,/                                                        

B       His/ ten/ der/ heir/ might/ bear/ his/ mem/o/ ry;/           

C       But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,               

D       Feed’st thy light’s flame with self-substantial fuel,         

C       Making a famine where abundance lies,                                                                                  D      Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.                   

E       Thou that art now the world’s fresh ornament              

F       And only herald to the gaudy spring,                       

E       Within thine own bud buriest they content,                                                                              F       And, tender churl, mak’st waste in niggarding.              

G              Pity the world, or else this glutton be:             

G              To eat the world’s due, by the grave and thee.                                 

 

Week 1. Read in Norton, ‘Shakespeare’s Life’, 44-60.

3 Jan   Introduction

5 Jan   1st hour: Sonnets 1-20, 29, 30, 40, 64, 73, 97, 116 and the introduction, 2^nd hour: Sonnets 127, 129, 130, 135, 138, 141, 143, 144, 147, 151.

 

Week 2. Read in Norton, ‘Shakespearean Comedy’, 121-155.

10 Jan  Read on line Two Gentlemen of Verona

12 Jan  1^st hour: Two Gentlemen of Verona. 2^nd hour:  A Midsummer Night’s Dream  

 

Week 3. Read in Norton on ‘Shakespeare’s World’, 1-44

17 Jan Martin Luther King Jr Holiday

19 Jan  A Midsummer Night’s Dream

 

Week 4.

24 Jan  The Merchant of Venice and the introduction

26 Jan  The Merchant of Venice

 

Week 5. Read in Norton, ‘Play of Language’, 65-69

31 Jan  Much Ado About Nothing and the introduction

2 Feb  Much Ado About Nothing

 

Week 6. Read in Norton, ‘Theater of Shakespeare’s Time’, 93-118

7 Feb  Twelfth Night Twelfth Night and the introduction.

9 Feb  Twelfth Night. Project 1 due today

 

Week 7. Read in Norton ‘Shakespearean Tragedy’, 957-68

14 Feb  Richard II, 2.1.31-68 (Gaunt), 4.1.133-50 (Carlisle), 5.6.30-52 (Exton, Henry IV), I Henry IV and the introduction

16 Feb  1 Henry IV and 2 Henry IV, 5.5.42-81 (Falstaff, Henry V), Epilogue, 24-34. Report due today. See Discussion Questions for topics.

 

Week 8. Read online Michele de Montaigne, ‘Of the Inconstancy of our Actions’

21 Feb  Presidents Day Holiday

23 Feb Henry V  and the introduction

 

Week 9

28 Feb  Henry V . Reports due today. See Discussion Questions for topics.

2 Mar   Hamlet, and the introduction.

 

Week 10. Read in Norton, 75-92, on Shakespeare’s Texts

7 Mar  Hamlet

9 Mar  Hamlet. Project 2 due today  

 

Study/Discussion Questions

5 Jan Sonnets. First hour:

1. Shakespeare’s sonnets are often concerned with the brevity of love relationships. How does he deal with the emotions related to this in sonnets 18 and 73?
2. How many different reasons are given to the young man to produce a child in sonnets 2, 3, 5, 7, 10, 11, 12, 15, 17?
3. How does the speaker in sonnets 1-17, 64, and 116 deal with the effects of time on relationships?

 

What do these poems suggest about the possible range of emotions in relationships between men? What about in the relationships between men and women?

 

Second hour:

1. What contradictions do you find among these sonnets in the poets feelings about the lady’s complexion and about their sexual relationship? Compare sonnet 130 to 147 and 135 to 129.
2. What images or literary devices do sonnets 138 and 143 exploit?
3. How much in control of the relationship is the poet in sonnets 144, 151, and 152?

 

What do these poems suggest about the range of emotions a man can experience in a sexual relationship with a woman? Compare these sonnets to Petrarch’s ‘songs’. What artistic end might these sonnets serve?

 

10 Jan. Two Gentlemen of Verona

1. How do Valentine and Proteus describe their love for one another in the first two acts? How is the love between Valentine and Sylvia/ Proteus and Julia described and presented in the first two acts? How does Proteus explain his betrayal of Julia and Valentine?
2. What is interesting or funny about the conversation between Julia and Lucetta in 1.2? What is interesting or funny about Julia’s disguise in 2.7?
3. How would you describe Lance’s character? What kind of humor characterizes his interactions with Speed?
4. How amusing is Lance’s relationship with Crab? See especially 2.3 and 4.4.1-60. How does this relate to the play as a whole? How does 3.1.262-375 relate to the play as a whole?

 

12 Jan.  First hour

1. What about the outlaws and the forest? Who are they? Why might this be an appropriate setting to end a comedy? What about Valentine’s speech, 5.4.1-18.
2. Why does Valentine offer Sylvia to Proteus at the end?
3. Are you satisfied with Proteus’s rationalization that Julia is just as good as Sylvia?
4. What does the last line of the play mean?

 

What conditions are necessary for harmonious marriages at the end of the play?

 

Second Hour. A Midsummer Night’s Dream

1. What style of speech does Shakespeare use for Bottom and his friends in 1.2 and 3.1? Why are these characters funny? Give your best examples.
2. What style of speech does Shakespeare use for the young lovers, especially in 1.2? How does he make these characters both funny and sympathetic?
3. What style of speech does Shakespeare use for the fairies? Compare 2.1. 2-58, 2.2.8-40, 72-85, 3.2.6-34, 102-121, 5.1.366-85. In what way is Puck amusing? In what way is he not so amusing? 1. What is the cause of the natural disasters in this play (2.1.81-117)?
4. What kind of relationship did Titania have with the mother of the changeling boy (2.1.122-137)? What kind of relationship do you imagine Hippolyta had with her Amazon friends before the play opens?
5. What kind of relationship did Helena and Hermia have as children (3.2.192-219)? Why does this change?

 

What do we learn about the kinds of emotions women can experience in relationships with other women?  What happens to these relationships over the course of the play?

 

19 Jan.                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

1. What do you think Titania wants from Bottom? What were they doing in her bower (3.1.192-6, 4.1.39-44, 75-8)? Anything comic about this? Are you familiar with any classical myths relevant to this scene?

2.. What is Demetrius trying to explain to Theseus about his change of heart (4.1.158-175)?  Compare Theseus’s explanation of the experiences in the wood (5.1.2-22) to Bottom’s (4.1.199-217). Be sure to pay attention to the footnotes!

3. Near the end of Act 5 is Puck’s poem symbolic of what he is sweeping behind the door?
4. What specifically do the fairies bless at the end of the play? Does this provide some insight into what romantic comedies are about?
5. Compare the effect of the performance of ‘Pyramus and Thisby’ by Bottom and friends to the play as a whole? What happens during the course of MND? What happens during the course of the performance of Pyramus and Thiisby?

 

24 Jan The Merchant of Venice

1. Who is the Merchant of Venice? Why do you imagine that Antonio is sad?
2. How attractive/admirable is Bassanio as a character? What kind of relationship does Antonio have with Bassanio?
3. What kind of character is Portia? Why do you think that Shakespeare gave her this name? What does the conversation with Nerissa in 1.2 do for the play?

4.What are Antonio’s motives for hating Shylock? What are Shylock’s motives for hating Antonio? Explain the differences of opinion between Antonio and Shylock on the subject of ‘interest.’

5. Compare and contrast Launcelot Gobbo to Bottom and Lance.
6. What character traits does each of the metal caskets symbolize? What is the point/meaning of this test?

 

26 Jan

1. Follow Jessica’s story. What kind of life does she live in Shylock’s house? Do you find her a sympathetic character?
2. What is the emotional effect of 3.1? How does it complicate the play?
3. What is gained/lost by imagining that Belmont is a version of the woods in MND?
4. Examine the evidence for what Portia, Bassanio, and Antonio feel about their relationships with one another. 5.4.10-21, 4.1.262-85.
5. What kind of relationship does Portia think she has with Bassanio? With Antonio? Why does Antonio want Bassanio to see him die?
6. What is Shylock’s point about slavery in 4.1.89-103? How does this affect your view of the trial? What is Portia’s point about Mercy in 4.1.182-203? How does this affect your view of the trial? Exactly what penalties is Shylock subject to in 4.1.344-61? What penalties are actually imposed in 4.1.366-70, 378-88?
7. Ending: What is the point of the ring episode? What is the point of the conversation between Jessica and Lorenzo in act 5? What is the effect of Shylock’s absence from Belmont in act 5?

 

31 Jan  Much Ado About Nothing

1. What kind of relationship do Beatrice and Benedick have? How does the interchange between them in 1.1.108-140 relate to what happens in the ball in 2.1?
2. What reasons does Beatrice give for not wanting to marry? What about Benedick? How valid are their reservations and concerns?
3. Look up the term masque. What does the ball (masked dance) in 2.1 contribute to the play?
4. What is the most striking image Benedick uses to convey his feelings about Beatrice in 2.1.229ff?
5. ‘In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke.’ How many jokes do you find about ‘cuckolds’

and  horns? What is the attitude of men in general toward women and marriage in this play?

6.How does Benedick react to the news that Beatrice is in love with him (2.2.3.217ff)? Is this a practical joke?  How does Beatrice react to the news that Benedict loves her? (3.1.107ff)? Is it fair to say that this is a practical joke?

 

2 Feb.

1.What is amusing about Dogberry, Seacoal, and the rest of the watch?

2. What motive does Benedick have to side with Beatrice against his friend, Claudio, in 4.1.255

-335? Is he being ‘whipped’ by Beatrice? Or is Shakespeare suggesting that friendship can exist

between a man and a woman? 

3. There is no natural space for the characters to retreat into and experience a transformation in

this play as there was in MND. Do you think that Hero’s ‘death’ and resurrection provide an

emotional or psychological transformation in the action?

4. What can be made of the fact that Benedict cannot write a poem for Beatrice?

5.. Why is Don Pedro sad? What does Benedick mean by his speech at the end (5.4.120-2)? Is he

Cheerfully embracing the very thing he feared would happen if he married?

6. Compare the ending to TGV, MND and MV. What are the similarities/differences? Hass

Shakespeare’s idea of Romantic Comedy matured?

 

 

7 Feb Twelfth Night 

1. In what ways are Olivia’s and Orsino’s attitudes alike? What is comic about them? In what way is Viola’s different from them?
2. What kind of character is Sir Andrew? In what way is he funny? What about Sir Toby? Does he remind you of Falstaff? What is amusing about him? What is not so amusing?
3. Does it seem that Shakespeare has combined elements of spring and winter festivals with a death and rebirth motif? What is the effect?

4.How does Feste’s first encounter with Olivia in 1.5.31-69 set him off as a different kind of comic character than those in the earlier plays we have read? Feste’s songs almost always carry more emotional weight than their entertainment value requires. How does this work in relation to his song ‘O Mistress Mine’ (2.3)?

Compare Feste to the earlier comic characters we have seen--Bottom and Dogberry. How has Shakespeare’s idea of comedy changed?

5. Feste’s song in 2.3 is sometimes taken as the them of the play as a whole. To what extent does this scene illustrate the passing of youth?
6. How are fantasy narratives used (2.4.105-9 ‘My father had a daughter,’ 1.5.263-71 ‘Make me a willow cabin at your gate’) to create a sense of Viola’s interiority?

 

9 Feb.

1. Describe the comedy in 2.5. How does this change in 3.4? To what extent does pathos intrude? What is the best example from Malvolio from Cesario? How does 2.5 and 3.4 go beyond what Shakespeare had done in Much Ado?
2. Wisdom and Folly are reversed in 4.2 To what extent do comedy, pathos, and maliciousness interpenetrate in this scene? To what effect? What is Sir Toby’s response to the practical joke being played on Malvolio?
3. Follow the relationship between Antonio and Sebastian. How connected to the homoeroticism of the play? To what effect?5. Olivia says that she was possessed by a “most extracting frenzy”. Try to identify this in her behavior from 1.5 to her marriage. How does this show up in the experience of other characters--Viola/Cesario and Orsino, Sir Toby and Maria, Antonio and Sebastian, Malvolio and Olivia?
4. The resolution offers happiness to some, but what about Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, Antonio, Malvolio?
5. How many different perspectives are offered on what has happened to Malvolio?
6. What is Feste’s song about? Does it seem that the play pushes the boundary of comedy? How?

 

14 Feb.

1.What does Gaunt think of Richard II as a king? What are his feelings for England? What does Carlisle prophecy about the future if Bolingbroke usurps Richard? How does the play end? What does Henry acknowledge?

2.At the beginning of 1 Henry IV how long has it been since the end of Richard I? Why hasn’t the king made his promised pilgrimage to Jerusalem?

3. The practical joke on Falstaff is set up by Poins and the Prince. What kind of character does 2.4 reveal the prince to be? How does Falstaff manage to escape humiliation? And what are the main themes of their little play in this scene?

 

16 Feb.  Report Topics

1. At what point does your response to Falstaff’s outrageous behavior change? Does Shakespeare develop his character to reveal something sinister behind the outrageous humor we see early in the play?
2. At the end of his life what does Hotspur recognize about the values-especially the value of honor--he has espoused? Implications for understanding one of the themes of the play?
3. Why does Hal allow Falstaff to take credit for killing Hotspur?
4. Evaluate Henry V’s decision to reject Falstaff in 2 Henry IV?

 

23 Feb.

1. What kind of expectations does the opening speech by the Chorus generate? How are these expectations challenged in the first scene in the discussion between the bishops of Canterbury and Ely?
2. Does the Archbishop’s argument for the kings’ claim to France seem convincing to you?
3. In 1.2 how does Shakespeare try to make the king’s decision to invade France personal rather than political? Does the fact that he blames the Dauphin amount to displaced responsibility? Find other examples of this.
4. In 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3 men who were at one time the king’s friends—Falstaff, Cambridge, Grey, Scrope—are--or will soon be--dead. To what extent does it appear that the king is responsible?
5. Does Exeter’s threats to the King of France fit the pattern of displaced responsibility?
6. In his rallying cry in 3.1 the king describes the characteristics of the English nobility and yeomen. What exactly are those characteristics? Pay careful attention to the imagery the king uses. How does he think the English got to be such fierce fighters? (see also 2.4.48-64, 1.2.102-115)

 

 

28 Feb. First hour

1. How do you respond to Henry’s threats to the governor of Harfleur in 3.3? Is this related in any way to the English lesson scene (3.4)?
2. Compare and contrast the argument between the disguised king and Williams (4.1) on the subject of the war. What does Williams think war does to relationships? How much of a sense do you get of Henry’s ‘interiority’ in 4.1.228-82? Describe it. Do you sympathize with him?

2.. Compare and contrast the rallying speech before battle 4.3.33-67 to the earlier discussion with Williams and Bates in 3.1.  What differences? What does Henry think war does to relationships?

3. What is the purpose of 4.4? How do you respond emotionally to Master Fer?

 

28 Feb. Report Topics.

1. Compare Montaigne’s description of the ‘self’ and of human action in “Of the Inconstancy of our Actions’ to Shakespeare’s depiction of Henry V’s interiority in 4.1.
2. How does Shakespeare use homosocial bonds between Hal/Henry and his friends to help

write this history play?

 

3. Katherine is a non-negotiable item in the peace treaty. What effort does Shakespeare make to soften this political fact? Make specific comparisons between the Henry we see here and the one we see earlier at Harfleur and Agincourt.
4. How does the epilogue affect your appreciation of Henry V’s achievement?

 

2 Mar.

1. Why is 1.1 a good introduction to this play? What ‘problem’ do Marcellus and the guards attempt to solve? How do they go about it? How typical of the play’s action as a whole?
2. How does Hamlet describe his ‘interiority’ in 1.2.76-86? How different is the interiority depicted in the first soliloquy in 1.2 from that of Henry V? How do you account for this?
3. Pay careful attention to the imagery in the ghost’s description of his death in 1.5. Is it significant that it takes place in an orchard? With poison? What happens to the king’s body? 1. By the end of act 1 how certain is it that the king was actually murdered?

 

After reading 1.2 how would you describe Hamlet’s character—his sense of humor, his behavior, the state of his mental health?

 

4. In 2.163-69 Polonius explains how he goes about discovering ‘directions.’ How many of the other characters use tis strategy? Give examples.
5. Hamlet admires the play describing Pyrrhus’s revenge. A good move since he is constructing himself as a revenger. But it also includes a description of the death of Priam and the reaction of Hecuba. Does it appear that revenge is complicated?
6. In this scene Shakespeare begins to make many references to drama and theatre. A group of players come to Elsinore because companies of boy players are getting all of the audiences in the city. Polonius talks about the various genres they can perform. Hamlet asks the chief player to perform several speeches from a play he admires. In act three the players will perform a play that comments directly on this play. How do all of these meta-theatrical devises affect your engagement with the play? Compare to MND and 1H4. Are you being encouraged to distance yourself form Hamlet and from his revenge project? To what effect?

 

Is Hamlet overly critical of himself at the end of Act 2?

 

 

 

7 Mar  

1.How does Hamlet relate thought and action in the ‘To be or not to be speech’ (3.1.57-92)? How does he relate word and action in his advice to the players (3.2.1-45)?  In what way might they be connected?

2.What does the Player King tell the Player Queen about the relationship between purpose and memory (3.2.184-213)? How connected to the relationship between thought and action, word and action? If human nature is constructed as the Player King says, then how can anyone be expected to remain faithful to a partner? And what might the Player King mean by saying that our wills and fates run contrary to one another?

3. Is it fair to say that when Claudius attempts to pray (3.3.35-72) he seems caught between thought and action?
4. Define revenge. What elements need to be present for an act to be considered revenge? How does Hamlet define it in 3.3? What is the great irony of his rationale for not killing Claudius?
5. Does Hamlet seem to be entirely in control of his emotions in 3.1 and 3.4 when he confronts Ophelia and his mother? What do both women think is wrong with him?
6. How is Polonius’s body treated (3.4, 4.2.31-2, 4.3.16-39)? Compare to 5.1.61-216. What are the similarities?

 

To what extent does the play call attention to human pretensions to greatness?

 

9 Mar

1. Compare Laertes and Hamlet as revengers. Which is more effective?
2. In what way might it be argued that the introduction of the pirates in 4.6 is appropriate in a play so concerned with the importance of individual responsibility for action?
3. Read the description and debate about Ophelia’s death, 4.7.167-191, 5.1.1-25. What do you make of the ambiguous outcome?
4. How do Gertrude and the two Clowns try to explain Ophelia’s death? Why should we be interested in this question? How might it be related to Hamlet’s definition of revenge?
5. What great irony lies behind Hamlet’s philosophical observations about human pretension to greatness in 5.1?
6. What final conclusions does Hamlet come to about the relationship between thought and action? What appears to be Shakespeare’s attitude toward purposeful action in this play?
7. Does Hamlet succeed in taking revenge for his father’s death? Or, is he the victim of Claudius’s plot to kill him?

 

To what extent does this play interrogate the three part structure of the typical Senecan revenge play?