EN251:
British Literature I
Fall
2006
Second
Essay Assignment
The
first essay will be due at the beginning of class on Tuesday, November
28 .
The
essay should be approximately 5-6 pages in length.
In
the essay, you should carefully compare and contrast the representation of
a given topic in two of the plays we have read by Shakespeare. You may write
on any topic that you like, but some suggested topics are:
-
POWER:
All three of the plays we have read address issues of power, authority,
and governance. In particular, the figures of Theseus, Oberon, King Lear,
and Prospero embody different philosophies of or approaches to political
authority. Choose two of these figures (from different plays,of course)
and study closely how each conceives of and exercizes power, whether their
views change over the course of the drama, and how they are similar and
different.
-
THEATER:
All three of these plays are also plays about plays. A Midsummer
Night's Dream incorporates a major subplot about players putting on
a play, considers the theatrical problems that confront them as they rehearse,
and then stages the play itself with deliberate echoes of the play as a
whole, while other characters comment on theater and the imagination. King
Lear has self-consciously theatrical characters, notably Edmund and
Edgar, whose uses of dramatic technique call into question the nature of
tragedy and hope. In The Tempest, not only does Prospero stage
little dramas throughout the play, and an actual masque in Act 4, but the
play constantly and explicitly refers to art and to its own theatricality.
Each one makes the theater itself a theme and investigates the power, purpose,
morality, and limitations of art in general and dramatic art in particular.
Compare and contrast the representation of the theater in any two of these
plays.
-
FATHERS
AND DAUGHTERS, WIVES AND HUSBANDS:
All of these plays, particularly King Lear and The Tempest,
center on relationships between fathers and daughters. And the daughters
tend to be poised between their obligation to and love for their fathers
and love and marriage of their own. Choose two plays and analyze what these
relationships reveal about women, men, sex, and gender.
-
NATURE:
A Midsummer Night's Dream moves from Athens to the forest; King
Lear casts its characters from the court into the wilderness; The
Tempest contrasts Prospero's island to the hyper-civilized cities of
Italy. Choose two of these plays and comparea and contrast their depictions
of nature, showing what nature represents in each play, what it reveals
about the characters and themes in each play, and how the plays are similar
and different in their depictions of nature.
Whatever
topic you choose, it is absolutely essential that your essay be based on a
strong, central thesis. The
thesis is the single, central idea that the essay means to convey to the reader.
A good thesis is one that can be proven (that is, it can
be demonstrated with evidence from the texts) and that needs to be
proven (that is, it is not self-evident). Avoid
vagueness! Make your thesis as precise and as specific as
possible.
Format:
All submitted papers should follow the Modern Language Association (MLA) guidelines
for formatting a paper. These guidelines can be found in the MLA Handbook
for Writers of Research Papers, 6th ed., which is available in the Reference
Section of the library and in the Writing Center, but they are also summarized
on pp. 148-150 of Diana Hacker’s Pocket Style Manual, with
sample pages on pp. 151-154. When commenting on your essays, I will refer
to Hacker on matters of format and style.
Following
the MLA style, all papers should cite their sources on every occasion that
they are used, and all paper should include a complete list of works cited.