Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Onward and upward!

There is an astonishing and horrifying article in the Dec. 24 New Yorker that explains two things:

  1. We are reading far less than we were fifty years ago
  2. The neurology of reading suggests that regular readers are simply better thinkers

We get in this Pavlovian habit of thinking that because reading happens at school, we should read only when books are assigned to us. If this is the way you think, here is your assignment for this break: read as much as you can.

Ah, but what to read? Here are a few possibilities:

If you liked A Midsummer Night's Dream, try...

  • Much Ado About Nothing
  • Twelfth Night, which is appropriately Christmas-themed
  • As You Like It, which is a bit more cerebral a comedy than MSND or Much Ado, and is hence something of a darling among academics

If you liked Henry V, then try...

  • The prequels, 1 Henry IV and 2 Henry IV
  • Richard II, which is something like the pre-prequel (H4 deposes R2)

If you liked Macbeth, then try...

  • Hamlet
  • Othello

If you liked The Tempest, then try...

  • A Winter's Tale

If you liked Slaughterhouse V, try...

  • Cat's Cradle, a Vonnegut novel which is at once apocalyptic and optimistic
  • The Sirens of Titan, which features the return of the Tralfamadorians

If you're interested in reading about Shakespeare, try...

  • Stephen Greenblatt’s Will in the World, which is currently the most prominent biography
  • Bill Bryson's Shakespeare: The World as Stage (which I haven't read but have heard generally good things about)

But perhaps you have had enough with Shakespeare for a while, and would like to try something a little less 400-year-old-ish. Here are some books I heartily, heartily commend to you:

  • The Mysteries of Pittsburgh by Michael Chabon (Pulitzer-prize winning author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay) is one of the funniest and most satisfying books I read this summer
  • Special Topics in Calamity Physics, by Marisha Pessl, is a snarky and thoughtful murder mystery, and an unrelenting delight of a read
  • Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2005 novel, is a perfectly-paced story set in a future that looks more or less like our own world
  • On that genre-fiction note, if you are a science fiction sort of person and have not yet read Ursula K. LeGuin's A Wizard of Earthsea, you should probably set aside an afternoon this break to do that
  • The next book on my to-read list is Junot Díaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao -- read it with me and we can talk about it next week

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Discussion Questions (week 14)

Welcome to the end! This week there are several short questions to think through in preparation for the final exam.
  1. Read through the preliminary exam instructions (which might soon be replaced by the official exam instructions) and the final exam study guide carefully. What questions do you have?
  2. Look over your lecture notes from the last half of the semester. What questions do you have about
    1. Terms?
    2. Themes?
    3. Main ideas?
    4. Historical contexts?
    5. Other arguments and ideas Prof. Dubrow has shared in lecture?
  3. There are four sample questions posted in the study guide. Although these questions will not appear on the final exam, they will get you started thinking about the broader topics that will appear. Pick one of the sample questions and answer it with reference to The Tempest.
  4. To conclude our literary analytical work for the semester, develop a close reading of the last lines of The Tempest. How does Prospero's epilogue differ from Puck's epilogue in MSND? How does it differ from the Chorus's epilogue in H5?
  5. Think ahead to the evaluations I will ask you to fill out at the end of discussion. What do you feel were some of the strengths of discussion? More importantly, what do you feel were its weaknesses? I tried to address some of the feedback you gave me after the midterm evaluations, but how well did I actually do? Next semester I will probably be teaching a section of English 100, which is an introductory composition class. If you have any thoughts about how writing can be taught most effectively I would love to hear them.

Friday, December 7, 2007

Extra office hours for week 14: Essay 2 conference sign-up sheet

I have scheduled some extra office hours for next week on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons. If you would like to sign up for one of these slots, please send me an email. I will try to keep this post updated, but you might want to send me 2 or 3 times that will work for you in case your first choice has been taken.

If these times do not work for you please send me an email and suggest a couple of times that will -- I'm happy to arrange a meeting at your convenience.

Tuesday 12/11, Fair Trade Coffee House
  • 3:30 pm - Carl
  • 3:50 - Lucas
  • 4:10 -
  • 4:30 - Leah
  • 4:50 -
  • 5:10 -

Wednesday 12/12, Open Book Cafe
  • 3:30 pm - Christie
  • 3:50 - Todd
  • 4:10 - Kathy
  • 4:30 - Nina
  • 4:50 -
  • 5:10 - Elise

Thursday 12/13, Open Book Cafe
  • Noon - Kaylin
  • 12:20 pm - Morgan
  • 12:40 - Jack
  • 1:00 - Tim
  • 1:20 - Shannon
  • 1:40 - Benton

Thursday, December 6, 2007

Reviewing the rhetorical terms

I've been putting together a handout on some of the terms we've encountered this semester, and in trying to remember the meaning of all the rhetorical terms we've learned this semester (commutatio, etc.) I've found this website -- the Silva Rhetoricae -- enormously helpful. You might find it useful in your studying for the final exam...

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Discussion questions (week 13)

We have two goals for this week, best articulated through lame puns:
  • Finalizing the rules and expectations of close reading
  • Essaying to simplify the rules for finding and articulating a thesis statement
To which end, here are two discussion questions:
  1. In lecture this week we have looked at multiple ways of reading Prospero and Caliban, first by looking at images from productions to see how they are presented as characters (Druid or Bishop; monster or victim) and then by looking at the sorts of speech acts they use.

    Do the same thing with Miranda, in the following order:

    1. Google for images of Miranda from productions of The Tempest -- you might want to print out one or two to bring to class so you can make your point
    2. Identify the different ways we can read Miranda's character: we know that Prospero can be read as manipulative or as gentle, and that Caliban can be read as monstrous and as victimized. What are two options for our reading of Miranda?
    3. Read Miranda's first speech -- I.ii.1ff (1662a)
    4. Identify the sorts of speech acts she uses (commands? curses? storytelling?)
    5. Close read her speech in at least two ways you identified as being possible approaches to her character

  2. When Prof. Dubrow was talking about her own recent analytical work, she explained, first, that the topic she was interested in was the relationship between space and storytelling. Then she defined that relationship a bit more specifically: How does storytelling create or control space? This process is fairly straightforward: Prof. Dubrow chose two topics* that we have tackled this semester -- space and storytelling -- and asked a question that tried to articulate the relationship between them.

    Now you try! Pick two topics that pertain to The Tempest and formulate a question that asks about the relationship between these topics. Does one topic control or shape the other? Are they interdependent?

    * Note that a "topic" is not necessarily the same thing as a theme. A theme can certainly be a topic, but we've never really thought about space as a theme, or closure. Also, you should not feel tied down to the themes Prof. Dubrow has put on the board in lecture.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Discussion questions (week 12)

  1. [This question is more or less a repeat of question 3 from our last discussion. You are welcome to recycle your notes.] Look back at your notes from Prof. Dubrow’s lecture about soliloquies from two weeks ago, and particularly the way she connects the soliloquy to a specific function—the creation of sympathy between character and audience. Do the same with a different form: the list. What is the function of the list? Why are there so many in this play? Answer this question by looking closely at one list, e.g.
    • II.iii.28
    • III.i.91ff
    • IV.i passim
  2. I am interested in seeing if we can use the form of discourse that seems to be at the heart of Macbeth to better understand its characters. How do Macbeth and Lady Macbeth soliloquize differently? How can we see the way they soliloquize as representative of differences in their characters?

    Look at four soliloquies: Lady Macbeth's "Unsex me here..." (I.v.38-54), Macbeth's "If it were done..." (I.vii.1-28) and his "Is this a dagger which I see before me..." (II.i.33-64), and Lady Macbeth's "Out, damn'd spot" (V.i.35-68). Here are some specific questions to work through:

    • How do the contexts of these soliloquies differ? Are they -- like the "Two truths are told" soliloquy -- just vocalizations of what the character is thinking? Are they spoken out loud? What do these differences mean?
    • What are the purposes of these soliloquies -- answering questions, a là the Senecan monologue? Giving the audience insight into characters' psychologies?
    • How do they use metaphors (and other figurative language) differently?
    • How do they refer to the physical world differently?

Monday, November 26, 2007

Lecture notes and videos, 11/27

Here are the lecture slides from 11/27 in a variety of formats:

  • PPT (1.8 MB)
  • PDF (14.1 MB)
  • RTF (40 KB, no images)

...and here are a couple of the clips that we looked at in lecture:

"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and tomorrow"

"Unsex me here"

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Revisiting extra credit

Many of you have fulfilled your performance requirement and are beginning to accrue extra credit by watching more performances. Here's a quick reminder about how this works:

Performances seenEffect on your final grade
0-16
1-12
2-8
3-4
40
5+2
6+4
7+5

Watching more than 7 performances is perfectly wonderful, and might improve your grade by giving you that much better a handle on the texts; however, you will not receive extra credit for them.

I'm sorry that extra credit is distributed kind of awkwardly -- I thought the 2/2/1 system was slightly more elegant than giving 5/3rds of a point for each of three movies.

Monday, November 19, 2007

The online discussion begins!

Carl (307) has posted a comment about the supernatural and the state of nature as a response to comments that came up in discussion on Friday.

Feel free to follow Carl's lead! As he notes at the top of his post, you can earn up to 5 points toward your participation grade by posting thoughtful, substantive responses (like Carl's) to questions, ideas, and problems that were raised in discussion. You are also welcome to respond to ideas, etc., raised by other posters.

Note that you will need a use or create a Blogger account. (I think you are already signed up for Blogger if you have a Gmail or other Google-based account, though I could be wrong about that.) You are welcome to post pseudonymously if you would rather avoid posting your full name, just email me to be sure that I know who you are so that I can give you credit.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Discussion questions (week 11)

Our focus in discussion this Friday will be IV.i, the show of kings scene. You might answer the following questions in reference to this specific scene, but I urge you to think about the relationship between the way these images and techniques appear not only in IV.i but everywhere in Macbeth...
  1. Last week, we spent some time discussing the relationship between power and the supernatural. We talked specifically about the way Billy Pilgrim, in Slaughterhouse V, uses the supernatural (or at least unnatural) power of time travel to escape the forces of history. How, though, do we see characters in Macbeth succumbing to or escaping supernatural powers? By looking closely at IV.i, think about the specific powers of the supernatural in Macbeth. What can the three witches do? To what extent can characters in Macbeth escape this power? What is the category crisis here?

  2. What categories of gender does Macbeth set up? How does the play throw these categories into crisis? Think both about the larger structure of the play -- particularly its emphasis on inheritance and succession -- but focus on one or two speeches that taclke the suggestions and ambiguities of gender. There are many moments you might think about; here is a smattering of lines:
    • I.v.40ff: "Come, you spirits / That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here..."
    • II.iii.83ff: "O gentle lady, / 'Tis not for you to hear what I can speak: / The repetition in a woman's ear / Would murther as it fell"
    • III.iv57: "Are you a man?"
    • IV.i.79ff: "laugh to scorn / The pow'r of man; for none of woman born / Shall harm Macbeth"
    • V.viii.17f: "Accursed be the tongue that tells me so, / For it hath cow'd my better part of man!"

  3. Prof. Dubrow has spoken about the significance of naming and predication as rhetorical systems in Macbeth. Think about a third (but related) system: lists. How do lists relate to naming and predication? How do they work as speech acts -- what are their direct and indirect effects? IV.i is rich with lists, but look also at lists elsewhere in the play, e.g. III.i.91ff.

Monday, November 12, 2007

Vonnegut reading Slaughterhouse V

If you are interested in listening to the rest of Vonnegut's five-minute reading of ch. 4 of Slaughterhouse V, it is posted here. (There is also a reading of the beginning of Breakfast of Champions.)

Incidentally, if you liked SV and are interested in picking up some more Vonnegut, I highly, highly recommend the following:
  • Cat's Cradle
  • The Sirens of Titan
  • Bluebeard (a later and calmer novel, and perhaps a little less frenetic and scifi than SV or the other two listed here)

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Discussion questions (week 10)

Remember to type out your answers to these questions if you want to get credit for ideas that you don't have a chance to share in discussion!
  1. Our discussions of Shakespeare often return to his discussion of power -- perhaps the power sought by monarchs (Theseus, Henry, Macbeth) or the power sought by private citizens (Hermia and Lysander, Shylock, Pistol). But how does Kurt Vonnegut discuss power and the powerful in Slaughterhouse V? How is this discussion of power different from and similar to the discussion of power in the Shakespeare plays (and sonnets) we have read -- particularly Henry V and Macbeth? Why is Vonnegut treating power similarly to the way Shakespeare treats it? Why is he treating it differently?

  2. [This question might be rewritten later this week if I can think of a better way to phrase it.] In what ways does Shakespeare's narrative technique in Henry V and in Macbeth seem similar to Vonnegut's narrative technique in Slaughterhouse V? Think, here, about the order in which the two writers put their plots together: the use of the Chorus in H5, say, or of the problematic narrator in S5. You might think about how all three texts move between the supernatural (God in H5, the Tralfamadorians in S5, the witches/Fates in M) and the ordinary.

Shylock's skull-cap...

...should be spelled "yarmulke." This is a transliteration from Yiddish, hence the occasional variation in spellings.

Monday, November 5, 2007

Upcoming movies

Here are the movies that TAs will be showing over the next five weeks:
All movies begin at 6:30 in Humanities 1101. Be sure to sign in before you leave!

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Discussion questions (week 9)

Discussion questions are back! In case you have forgotten their rules, my expectations are as follows:
  • Before discussion you will spend about an hour reviewing your notes, rereading portions of the play, and thinking through answers to these questions.
  • You will type and print your answers so that, in theory, I might be able to call on you in discussion on Friday and you will be ready with an answer. (Historically, I haven't called on people; still, I like having this as a threat.)
There are two questions for this week:
  1. Take any speech in H5 as your own -- it doesn't have to be as long as the Archbishop's speech that we looked at on Friday, but it should be at least 30 lines. Look at the speech for four things:
    1. How and why does it use repetition?
    2. How does it try to persuade its audience?
    3. In a more general sense, how does it suggest the techniques by which language asserts power?
    4. How does the speech respond to, create, and transform metaphors that exist elsewhere in the scene or the play?


  2. Put together an outline of Henry V by act, noting the setting, main characters and main action for each scene. This should take about ten minutes. Spend fifteen or twenty minutes thinking about the logic of this organization. Why does Shakespeare fly us around so much? Why do we jump to the French side when we do? Why do we get scenes with the barfolk when we do? Why do we get scenes with Katherine and Alice when we do?

Essay 2 assignment

Here, in case you wanted it, is a PDF of the assignment for the second mini-essay and the second essay.

Following the plot

I realize that our discussion on Friday was more than a bit fragmented. If you are baffled by Henry V, let me suggest three techniques that might help you tackle the text a bit more easily:
  1. Read a summary of the play before or at the same time that you read the script. Prof. Dubrow has written study guides for each of the plays we are tackling this semester, which are all online here. If you are interested in detailed scene-by-scene summaries there are, obviously, dozens of options out there. After a quick survey of the options, I have to say that I prefer the Cliffs Notes scene-by-scene summaries of Henry V, available for free online, which seem generally more accurate and articulate than other versions I could easily find. (Ignore their pedantic "commentary," of course.)

  2. It is usually ideal to read the script before watching a movie adaptation of the play so that your reading isn't influenced by any one interpretation of the text. Still, if you are having trouble understanding the characters, arguments, or plots of Henry V it might be worth watching a movie version before you have finished reading, so that the play seems like more than page after page of dull political speeches.

  3. I know I've been advocating this every week, but I'm serious: if you get the audiobook versions of these plays and listen to them either when you're just walking around campus or if you sit down and listen to the audio while you follow along in the script you will become far, far more comfortable with the content of the plays.
It goes without saying, I hope, that the single best way to master any of these plays is to reread them -- twice, if that's possible. Remember that you will be responsible at 7:30 pm on Dec. 21st for every line of Henry V. Unless you have an eidetic memory you won't be remembering every line after one quick reading.

Monday, October 29, 2007

Germaine Greer on Shakespeare's wife

If you are into podcasts and what we know about the biography of Shakespeare, you might want to check out Germaine Greer's aggressive defense of Anne Hathaway in this podcast from the Guardian Unlimited Book Club. As with any Shakespeare biography -- and Greer acknowledges this in the podcast -- we have to be more than a little suspicious of claims that cannot, ultimately, be rooted in any sort of evidence. Still, this is worth a listen if you have the time and inclination.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Office hours this week

To clarify the 800 emails I've been sending out in the last few days, my office hours for this week (and this week only) are
  • Noon to 2 pm on Tuesday in the Open Book Cafe (on the first floor of College Library)
  • 3:30 to 5:30 pm on Thursday at the Fair Trade Coffee House

Monday, October 22, 2007

Reviewing for the midterm

The midterm that is coming up this Thursday is going to be fairly difficult. Prof. Dubrow and I have done what we can to prepare you for it, but the rest of the work lies with you: we expect your exam essay to prove that you have taken the time to master the texts we have covered so far. How, though, do you prepare for an essay exam?

Here, loyal blog readers, is how I would prepare:
  1. Begin by reviewing your notes. Type up a list of terms and a list of themes that have come up in regard to MSND, MoV, and the sonnets. Don't hesitate to email me if you have any questions about terms or themes.
  2. Look in your notes for hints about how to read passages from these texts: in what ways, for example, has Prof. Dubrow discussed the theme of time in the sonnets?
  3. Next, review the texts themselves. This doesn't have to be time-consuming if you approach the rereading process carefully:
    • Don't reread everything -- you won't pick up much that way; instead, spend your time on one or two carefully-chosen scenes for each play, and maybe on three sonnets.
    • Choose scenes that seem like they could be useful for answering any sort of question about the play, and, if you can, choose scenes that haven't yet been covered in class and that you think will distinguish you from your peers.
    • Really get to know those scenes and those sonnets inside and out: how can you use that theme to discuss substitution? protection? exchange? time? desire? the performance of gender? the problems and advantages of the theatre? of comedy? of lyric?
    • If you are the sort of person who can, memorize a line or two from each scene. There's nothing more impressive than seeing a well-used quotation in an essay exam -- as long as you're not just tossing it in there because, dammit, you've memorized the thing, but because it has some real value for your argument.
  4. Once you've done this, get together with one or two classmates. (If you want to form a study group but don't have any likely partners on whom to call, let me know and I can send an email out to both discussions.)
    • With your study group, hash out as many thematic connections as you can between the texts.
    • Make up essay questions -- How does X relate to Y? is a good format, where X and Y are themes -- and trying to find the most interesting ways to answer them with reference to the details (NOT THE PLOT) of the two plays and the sonnets.
    • Talk through a list of details -- metaphors and other imagery, rhythmic styles (e.g. the chant-like meter of the fairies in MSND), symbols, famous ("If you prick us, do we not bleed?" etc.) and not-so-famous lines, etc. -- from the plays and sonnets that you might be able to use for a whole range of essay questions.
    • Then sit down and write out a whole essay. Give yourselves 40 minutes, with 5 minutes for planning an outline, and share the results with the group. What are some strong tactics that you used? How might you organize your time more effectively?

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Free audio of Shakespeare monologues

Librivox is a project dedicated to creating and publishing online free audio versions of public domain texts. Although they don't seem to have any complete Shakespearean texts, they do have a number of monologues and a couple dozen sonnets. While not a perfect resource -- Librivox texts are read by volunteers, and hence the quality of their recordings varies -- this might be the tool you need to keep the language, themes, and emotional affect of these texts at the front of your mind as you prepare for the midterm.

Discussion questions (week 7)

In preparation for the midterm next week, our discussion on Friday will function as a sort of mini-review. To this end, I'd like you to come to class having completed three review-centric tasks:
  1. Write up a list of the terms that Heather has put on the board, and their definitions. I'd like to spend the beginning of discussion reviewing terms you're unsure about.

  2. Write up a list of the themes that pertain to MSND, the sonnets, MoV, and H5. These lists should include those themes Heather has put on the board or suggested in her lectures, but don't stop there -- add to these lists any themes you find striking or persuasive but which haven't come up in class.

    Pay particular attention to the themes that apply to multiple texts -- again, these may or may not be themes that Heather has put on the board.

  3. MOST IMPORTANTLY, write an essay question in the style of Heather's examples. You can download the essay questions Heather wrote for last year's midterm here (PDF). Notice that these questions usually
    1. Require comparison either between plays or within a single play
    2. Connect to ideas Heather has raised in lecture once or twice, but not to issues central to those lectures
    3. Ask you to connect a theme (e.g. the role of power in politics and in relationships) to a technique (e.g. closure, pairing, mirroring, etc.)

Sunday, October 7, 2007

Essay 2: a preview

Your second essay isn't due for two months. That sounds like a good thing, but since it will be due at the very end of the semester you might want to begin thinking about it now so that you don't find yourself crushed by all the work you have to do in the last week of classes.

You will be able to write on any one or two performances (cinematic or theatrical) of any of the plays we read from now until the end of the semester: The Merchant of Venice, Henry V, Macbeth, or The Tempest.

Although I reserve the right to change the wording in the next month, the essay topic will look more or less like this: 

How does this performance respond to the themes of the play? What themes does it emphasize? What themes does it ignore? What themes does it add? As a scholar of Shakespeare, why do / don't you feel that this interpretation was successful?

In your analysis, take into consideration at least two of the following:

  • Directorial decisions, including the setting
  • Actors' interpretations of their roles
  • Blocking, intonation, and other features of actors' performances
  • Costume design, scenery and stage design, music, lighting, and (if applicable) camera work
Your essay should focus on a single performance, but you are welcome to refer occasionally to a second performance if you feel you can make your point more successfully through comparison.

Watching, listening to, and studying the plays

If you spend as much time plugged into an iPod as I do, you might find it useful to grab audiobook versions of Shakespeare's plays to listen to during your spare time. The plays were not meant to be read as though they were novels, so there is a lot you can pick up just listening to a good performance, even if you can't see it.

The Madison Public Library is an extraordinary resource for Shakespeare audiobooks and movies. Its location nearest to campus is just off State Street nearish the capital.

Once you get a library card, the MPL has an online text-reservation system that works sort of like a free Amazon. Once you look up your book (here is one audiobook version of MoV, to give an example) you can click on Request Item, enter your library card number, and then the item will be delivered to the library location of your choice and held under your name for a week.

From what I have been able to tell, the MPL has a deeper selection of Shakespeare audiobooks and movies than our University libraries have. If you want to watch a version of Merchant of Venice that Four Star Video doesn't have, then MPL will probably have it. (And for free.) Just remember to keep the checkout receipt from the library so that you have physical evidence to show me.

Friday, October 5, 2007

Emailing me your essay -- some formatting notes

These are not critically important notes. If you have already sent me your essay you're done and can breathe easily, perhaps take a day off from thinking about Shakespeare.
  1. I have Word 2003 for the Mac, which means that I can't read Word 2007 documents or convert them into a format in which I can read them.

    To help me out here, please save your essay as a .DOC or as a .RTF (Rich Text Format) file. This is as simple as opening your essay up in Word, choosing Save As... from the File menu, and choosing either Word 97-2003 Document or Rich Text Format from the Save As Type drop-down box.

    Here are directions from the Microsoft website. The process is almost exactly the same no matter what word-processing program you use.

  2. So that I don't drown in files named Essay 1.doc, I'd really appreciate it if you could save your essay as [Surname] 1.doc -- if I were to turn an essay in to myself, it would be Shapiro 1.doc... and I would be crazy.

  3. If the essay doesn't come in exactly at 5:00 then that's completely fine. Don't push this too far, but if your essay is half an hour late then that isn't something to be stressed out about.

Sunday, September 30, 2007

A few quick notes about Friday's sonnet activity

  1. I was quite impressed with the analytical depth of your readings of the sonnets, especially considering that you had less than half an hour to get to that depth. If you would like to retrieve your group's notes about your chosen sonnet I will have them with me during my extended office hours this week and, of course, before and after lecture. (I will make photocopies so that each group member can have the whole group's notes.)
    • Everybody received 1 point toward participation credit from their small group work. Members of groups that appeared to have been especially productive or insightful received 2 points. Participation during whole-group discussion at the beginning of class was scored as usual. The maximum number of points that could be earned in this lesson was raised to 3 -- it's usually 2.
  2. Note that the love object for sonnets 1-127 is male -- this is the fair youth that Kim and Heather talked about for the last three lectures. Although any individual sonnet, when taken out of its context, might apply equally successfully to a male or female love object, for the sake of narrative consistency and to demonstrate your mastery of the larger arc of these sonnets your pronouns should refer to a male beloved if you are writing on, say, sonnet #18 ("Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?").
  3. If you would like to download the sonnets we worked with on Friday, click here. If you would like to download the sonnet worksheet we used, click here.

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Discussion question (week 4)

There is only one discussion question this week, but it comes in many parts:
  1. Print out sonnet 147 triple-spaced, identifying subtleties of meaning and connections between words and ideas therein
  2. Write out the surface meaning of the sonnet -- what is its plot?
  3. Identify and explain the wordplay in the sonnet: what purposes do these puns serve?
  4. How does the speaker change the metaphor from quatrain to quatrain?
  5. What does the volta change?
  6. Does the couplet provide closure?
  7. What expectations does this sonnet violate?
  8. How is the form of this sonnet related to its content?

Notes on mini-essay 1

You can pick up your first mini-essay from me either in the Open Book Cafe (see hours below) or after lecture this afternoon.

The mini-essays were, on the whole, very strong; the mean grade was 89/100 (2.2/2.5) with a standard deviation of 5.5 (0.14). However, don't let the strength of your work here shove you onto laurels: in the past several years, the first full-length essays of the semester have averaged significantly lower, in the range of 83 or 82.

In order to make sure that the first essays this semester are different, here are a few general notes about weaknesses I noticed in the mini-essays that I would love to see the full-length essays avoid:
  • Introductions should be as direct as possible. Broad statements about Shakespeare or his plays are only useful if (1) you are offering a completely new broad statement of your own devising, and (2) you are doing so at the beginning of a 500-page scholarly publication over the course of which you will prove your original and sweeping generalization.

    In a short essay (say, anything fewer than 10 pages long) it is best to begin with the striking, original observation that is specific to the text with which you are working. Ideally, this should be an observation that will be completely new to me. Examples:

    • The moon plays a central role in directing the lunatics in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream (Lydia, 315)
    • Vision, simply the faculty of seeing with the eyes, determines what we perceive. However, it is the mind that determines how and why we register events the way we do (Sam, 307)
    • Theseus's speech to begin the denouement of A Midsummer Night's Dream--the beginning of the end, if you will--sets up another pair of contrasting ideas through his use of the word "strange" (Raechel, 315)

    The idea here is to swiftly establish the terms of your argument.

  • Conclusions should bring all the components of your analysis together to make a new and thematically significant point. In other words, your conclusion should explain why all of your literary analysis was worth reading. Examples (these are key sentences from longer conclusions):

    • Like the rest of the play, the only purpose [Puck's] speech serves is to stir a sense of uneasiness and questioning into its audience (Nina, 307)
    • The "idle" theme of A Midsummer Night's Dream is not void of worth or usefulness in the sense that the theme is trivial and of no importance, but rather that an attempt to control the theme is a worthless and useless pursuit (Jordan, 307)
    • People want to love because it is so out of their control. People wan power so that they do not feel so controlled themselves. . . By pointing to their uselessness, their idleness, Shakespeare has shown us that love and power are actually very important (Shannon, 315)
    • Shakespeare believes, even at this point in time, that imagination is the portal into the human mind, and that by breaking down the barriers that surround the human mind one can discover truth in any idea, shape or image that connect directly with reality (Kenyatta, 317)

  • Be as specific as possible throughout your essay. This is perhaps the most important point here. If you are explaining that one idea connects to another, explain how those ideas connect. If you are arguing that a certain interpretation is significant to our reading of the text, explain why it is significant. You can think of this like showing your work when you answer a math problem: I want to be able to see nearly all the steps of your thinking process, and I want you to hunt for nuances in the connections between ideas.
The notes above are the most significant things I have to say about your essays. Specific language, direct introductions and insightful conclusions will do more for your grade than all the proofreading in the world. Here, though, are a few minor things to proofread for:
  • Mark line breaks when you quote verse with slashes and retain original capitalization, e.g. "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? / Thou art more fair, and with a lower chance / Of precipitation in the late afternoon."
  • When a quotation ends with a period or a comma, that period or comma should go inside the quotation mark. (This is different in Britain--if you read a lot of British fiction you'll see authors doing this in the exact opposite way.) Hence: Theseus refers to "The lunatic, the lover, and the poet," three people he would rather not invite over for tea.
  • Don't spell out the act, scene, and line(s) to which you refer--using the standard shorthand (ACT.scene.line-line, e.g. V.i.3-7) is fine.
  • Likewise, don't worry about spelling out the full titles of the plays unless the title is only one word (e.g. Macbeth and The Tempest)--I'm fine with MSND, H5, and MoV. If you do spell out the title, don't forget to underline or italicize it.

Saturday, September 22, 2007

The first essay, now downloadable!

...in case you misplace your hard copy:

Essay 1 conference sign-up sheet

Hi, all! If you would like to meet with me during one of the times listed below, send me an email to reserve the spot.

To make scheduling a bit easier for me, I can't guarantee that I will be in any of these places if you haven't let me know beforehand that you would like to see me. (With the exception of my usual Tuesday office hours -- I will always be around then.)

There are two rules about having a conference:

  1. You must have spent at least an hour working on your essay before you come to see me -- in that hour you might have drafted a page of your essay, or you might merely have brainstormed out a couple of possible approaches to the assignment, but what matters is that you aren't coming to me cold.
  2. You need to come with one or two specific questions to ask me about your essay.


Tuesday, 9/25 at Fair Trade Coffee House

  • 3:30 pm - Ryan M.
  • 3:50 -
  • 4:10 -
  • 4:30 -
  • 4:50 -
  • 5:10 -

Thursday, 9/27 at the Open Book Cafe

  • 12:30 pm - Lydia
  • 12:50 -
  • 1:10 -
  • 1:30 - Shannon

Monday, 10/1 at Espresso Royale (the one near campus)
  • 1:30 pm - Carl
  • 1:50 - Sam
  • 2:10 - Heather
  • 2:30 - Kaitlin
  • 2:50 - Morgan

Tuesday, 10/2 (morning) at the Open Book Cafe

  • 10:30 - Erin
  • 10:50 -
  • 11:10 -
  • 11:30 -
Tuesday, 10/2 (afternoon) at Fair Trade Coffee House
  • 3:30 pm - Raechel
  • 3:50 - Christie
  • 4:10 - Rachel
  • 4:30 - Kathy
  • 4:50 - Leah
  • 5:10 - Kenyatta
  • 5:30 - Megan

Thursday, 10/4 at the Open Book Cafe
(If you meet with me at this time, I will expect you to have a full rough draft of your essay.)
  • 10:00 am - Lucas
  • 10:20 - Jenna
  • 10:40 -
  • 11:00 - Tim
  • 11:20 - Patrick
  • 11:40 - Lydia

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Discussion questions (week 3)

[Apologies if you saw a couple of questions up here earlier--for a few hours on Tuesday I had in mind a different approach to tomorrow's discussion.]

In discussion this week we will focus wholly on MSND since we will get to spend next two discussions talking exclusively about the sonnets.

  1. How do events in act V mirror events from the first four acts? Compare one event in act V with an event that it seems to mirror from earlier in MSND. As your "event," you might want to use the speech about which you are writing your mini-essay.

    List what these events have in common and list, also, the ways in which these events differ. Although this is fundamentally a question about structure, think also about word use and staging: how does Shakespeare change the meaning of a word or of an idea from an earlier act to act V? (This is just a new version of the third discussion question from last week.)

  2. On Tuesday, Heather suggested that the play within the play at the end of MSND served to fully reverse the tragic momentum of act I. List three more reasons the play within the play might be at the end of MSND. You might want to think in terms of politics, social class, and/or the purpose of art.

  3. We should spend the last twenty minutes of discussion addressing your own questions about MSND. Come in with a question about the text, or a problem that you can't resolve -- a scene, character, idea, or conclusion that doesn't make any sense.

Getting credit for attending performances

I've been forgetting an important element of the performance requirement. In order to get credit for watching any performance you will need to turn in not only a bit of evidence that you've seen it (your name on a sign-up sheet, a ticket stub, a rental receipt) but you will also need to email me a short paragraph.

If you see a movie or performance of one of the plays we are reading this semester, your short paragraph should answer either of these two questions: How did the director interpret the play? or How has this performance affected your interpretation of the play?

Your response to this question should be around 100 words --three or four sentences -- long. I will look at your response to see that you have spent some time thinking about the performance, but your response will not be given a grade.

Friday, September 14, 2007

Mini-essay 1 word sign-up

Here are the words you signed up to tackle in your mini-essays! Let me remind you to email me at any time if you have questions or if you want to run some ideas by me. If you would like to talk your essay over with me, I would love to see you during my office hours (Tue. 3:30 to 5:30, Fair Trade Coffee House) or before or after lecture next week.

Here is a Microsoft Word version of the essay assignment.



Theseus, V.i.3-22
Word
307315
StrangeTimRaechel
Fables

Shaping

FantasiesMorganJenna
Apprehend
Matt
ComprehendKaitlinLucas
LunaticRachelLydia
LoverJasmineKat
PoetRyan
ImaginationZach
Forms
Danielle
NothingMeganJohn
JoyChristieBenton
Fairy
Jake
Puck, V.i.423ff
Word307315
ShadowsHeatherKathy
ThinkLeahRyan
MendedCarlElise
SlumberedErinTodd
VisionsSamJosh
IdleJordanShannon
ThemeNina
DreamAllieKaylin
Reprehend
Patrick

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Literary Analysis? No Problem!

Beginning this afternoon, the Writing Center will be offering short classes in writing literary analysis essays. These are free, low-commitment classes offered to undergraduates at the University. The description -- and a link to register -- are here: http://www.wisc.edu/writing/Classes/LitAnalysis.html.

In 162, we will just not have the time it takes to talk through the nuances of literary analytical writing -- we have 14 short weeks in which to learn everything about Shakespeare, and that is enough of a challenge -- so this short Writing Center course can really be an excellent introduction to writing college English papers. If you are the slightest bit unsure about how to approach essay writing in 162 I urge you to take this class.

Two movies next week!

Christopher is beginning to announce the movie schedule, which is posted on the class website. Tuesday and Thursday nights next week, from 6:00 to 8:30, we will be showing movie versions of MSND.

Just as a reminder, here the requirements:

  • You must attend 4 performances of Shakespeare plays this semester
  • At least one performances must be live; the rest of the performances may be movies
  • Unless for some reason you are unable to attend, this live performance should be APT's Merchant of Venice on Saturday, November 3rd
  • Any live performance of a Shakespeare play will count, whether or not we are studying that play this semester
  • All of the movies you see must be of texts we are reading this semester; adaptations of texts we are reading are fine -- Scotland, PA, for example, is a well-reputed adaptation of Macbeth
  • The TAs will show 10 movies over the course of the semester, two versions of each of the plays we are reading
  • If you go to one of the movies shown by the TAs, you will get credit for attending if you write your name on the attendance sheet
  • If you choose, instead, to rent a movie you will need to bring in a rental receipt
  • Likewise, if you go to a live performance other than or in addition to MoV you will need to bring in your ticket stub or some other bit of evidence
  • If you see performances beyond the required 4, you will earn extra credit -- 2 points per performance up to a maximum of 5 points

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Discussion questions (week 2)

N.b.: Beginning this week, I will call on students to begin our discussion of posted topics. Your answers need not be formal disquisitions, but I expect you to be prepared with a thoughtful and interesting response.

For this reason, I strongly recommend typing up notes -- not only your answers to these questions but also questions of your own or thoughts you have had à propos of Heather's lectures.
  1. Spend ten minutes thinking about the word green. Make three lists:
    1. What are its denotations? (You might want to consult the Oxford English Dictionary definition. Focus on meanings current in 1595.) 
    2. Just as importantly, what are its connotations? 
    3. What might green symbolize?

  2. How do the meanings you've developed open up new ways of reading MSND? For example, does the meaning of the word depend on where it is spoken? Is a green in the court the same thing as a green in the woods?

    This is a fairly broad question, which you should go about answering by concentrating on one or two specific instances of the word in the text. By my count, Shakespeare uses green nine times:

    • I.i.185 (Helena)
    • II.i.9 (fairy)
    • II.i.28 (Puck)
    • II.i.94 & 99 (Titania)
    • III.i.3 (Quince)
    • III.i.167 (Titania)
    • III.ii.393 (Oberon)
    • V.i.335 (Thisby)

  3. Pick two mirrored events in MSND -- that is, whole scenes or parts of scenes that seem to echo each other. (Example: Oberon applying the love potion to Titania's eyelids and Puck applying the love potion to Lysander's. You can't use this example, of course, but have to find your own.) Now think about these mirrored events structurally: how are they similar and how are they dissimilar? Why is Shakespeare intentionally paralleling these two events?

Thursday, September 6, 2007

Syllabi for discussion... (Corrected 9/10)

...are here:

The syllabus for Heather's lectures is here.

(Thank you, Chelsea.)

Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Discussion questions (week 1)

Every week, before discussion on Friday, I will post one or two discussion questions right here. Usually I will post these questions after Heather's second lecture of the week.

Posted below are the two questions I want to focus on in our discussion on Friday. Please take half an hour to think them over -- you might even want to jot down some possible answers, so that you have ideas to begin with in Friday's discussion.

  1. Think about the economics of English 162 for a minute. The University of Wisconsin - Madison is paying Heather's salary -- which I hope is quite a lot -- and mine, and that of the other five TAs for the class; it is paying to keep Humanities 3650 clean, cool, and in working order; and it is making some three hundred students -- many of whom just want to get degrees in kinesthesiology and get out of here -- take this class to fulfill a gen. ed. requirement, thereby slowing down students' academic careers and delaying the date at which they can begin donating lots and lots of money to their alma mater. Then multiply this class by the 26 University of Wisconsin campuses.

    Don't get me wrong: I love that the University is paying so much money to make sure that no student gets a Wisconsin degree without spending three months working through the interpretive knots of English literature, but I have to wonder: Why does the University find studying Shakespeare so enormously valuable? Why is it worth the expenditure it receives?

  2. Think about the Toolbox question Heather gave us this afternoon: How does the context in which a text is encountered inform our understanding its meaning? Apply this question to the way we are encountering Shakespeare's plays: How does the fact that we are encountering MSND as written words rather than as a theatrical performance shape our understanding of the meaning of the play? You can be even more detailed about this: how is the way we read MSND different when we encounter it in a 5.6-pound book with Shakespeare's 36 other plays sitting around it, with copious scholarly annotation at the bottom of every page? What would it be like to, instead, encounter the play in the 0.15-pound Dover edition, which is completely without annotation?

  3. In lecture this week, Heather has given several examples of how the staging of a scene can substantially alter its meaning or, at least, its mood. Pick a few lines from Act I or Act II of MSND (not ones that Heather has discussed, though). If you were directing the play, how could you stage those lines two completely different ways: once comically and once tragically; or, in Heather's words, once dreamily and once nightmarishly?

Monday, September 3, 2007

More optional reading

Surely, the first question you all want to ask is "Mike, I am eager to do extra, optional reading -- what books might I pick up?" Well, my friend, here are a couple ideas: I just picked up Stephen Greenblatt's Will in the World, his recent biographical consideration of Shakespeare -- it's a delightful read by a fairly well-reputed American scholar of Shakespeare. Along similar lines is James Shapiro's (no relation) A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare, or so I have been told.

Sunday, September 2, 2007

Office hours

Every Tuesday from 3:30 to 5:30 pm, I will be in the Fair Trade Coffee House at 418 State Street. If your schedule allows, you might think about visiting me there sometime in the first few weeks of the semester -- you don't have to, but it will give us a chance to get to know each other, and to chat about Shakes.

Shakespearean supplements

There are rather a lot of supplemental materials out there purporting to explain Shakespeare to beginning readers -- doubtlessly, Cliff, Spark and Monarch make a tidy profit every fall as students wade through another semester's densely-packed syllabus. These guides have their place as memory aids, but Heather's own study guides (linked on the right) do this work just as well, and for free. The real danger of Cliff and Spark is that their readings are flat and finite.

Good supplemental texts help you see how the uncertainties of Shakespeare explode off the page, and they give you the tools you need not to "understand" a text -- as though understanding that could be achieved for you via a $6, 96-page pamphlet -- but to read it, and read it well.

When I took my first introductory collegiate Shakespeare course, I found a few supplemental resources especially useful:
  • The Meaning of Shakespeare (1951), by Harold C. Goddard. (In two volumes.) Goddard writes lengthy, reflective considerations of Shakespeare's plays and only rarely offers a conclusive interpretation; he generally prefers to roll the plays around his mind until he has found just enough new ways of thinking about them, and then he moves along.
  • Northrop Frye on Shakespeare (1986), by Northrop Frye. (Of our texts this semester his book covers only MSND and The Tempest.) Frye was a gifted critic, and these short essays on Shakespeare are excellent introductions to the analytical tools critics bring to Shakespeare's plays.
  • Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human (1998), by Harold Bloom. Bloom is generally considered a popular critic rather than an academic one. This is good in that he writes specifically for readers who are coming to Shakespeare as nonexperts; this is bad in that he occasionally oversimplifies Shakespeare. Read any supplemental guide to Shakespeare skeptically, but read Bloom's guide with an extra dose of skepticism.

Class calendar

If you would find it useful to have an updated online version of the English 162 calendar for the semester, please feel free to use this one:

(If you have your own Google calendar, you can add this one as a layer in yours.)

An exceedingly short note about email

You should email me, without hesitation, whenever you have a question you think I might be able to help you answer.

My preferred email address is mashapiro@gmail.com. Please note the second letter: in the past, students have left it out, sending email off into the unanswering void. Think of it thus: MA is a TA.

(That "A" stands for "Alan," the name of my hypochondriac great-grandfather. According to family legend, he always used a handkerchief to open doors, and he chewed every bite of food thirty-two times.)

Tuesday, May 8, 2007

Hark!

This blog will host remarks and assignments for Mike Shapiro's sections of English 162 at the University of Wisconsin - Madison in the Fall of 2007, taught by Prof. Heather Dubrow. Check back at the end of the summer for details about the course and links to useful resources.