Senior English 243: ShakespeareName:

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Shakespeare INTENSIVE—Weekly Scholarly Criticism Assignment

  1. Read/Listen to/View Scholarly Criticism. For each of terms 1-3, you will complete weekly enrichment assignments, where you will
  2. read, listen to, or view some form of enriched scholarship—which will be an essay, a lecture, or a documentary—and
  3. turn in a typed or handwritten response that includes
  4. notes that show full attention to the material and
  • a short 4-5-sentence reflection/response on one key area of learning—an idea, concept, set of facts—that you gained. I expect this assignment to take between 60 and 75 minutes to complete and will represent the heart of the extra time spent for the honors-level credit. These extra assignments are meant to enrich your experience and understanding and not merely to add work for an honors distinction.
  1. Use Criticism in Analytical Writing. You will then use the material from these notes in subsequent analytical writing during each term.

Integrity/Collaboration

You are of course expected to complete the note-taking and response-writing on your own but are welcome to listen or watch alongside another classmate, and even discuss key points as you go through the lecture or program. This is tricky since crossing the line between collaboration and fraud is riskier. Please complete this assignment with integrity each week and ask for an extension if your workload during a given week will make completion especially difficult.

Options

I’ll try to offer as many options as I can for your weekly criticism digestion—so that this experience, although challenging at times, is not overly burdensome or tedious.

  • Anytime/Any-week Options. The Shakespeare Page, linked from the course website, has many options that can be chosen any given week. In the “Podcasts and Videos” section, for instance, you can access the following:
  • Emma Smith’s many audio lectures on Shakespeare’s plays;
  • all of the PBS “Shakespeare Uncovered” series episodes;
  • Marjorie Garber’s video lectures (including Macbeth, Othello, and King Lear) [these are long two-hour lectures, half of which counts for one week’s assignment);
  • The Royal Shakespeare Company’s “Playing Shakespeare” episodes on acting Shakespeare (which includes young Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellan, and Judi Dench)

Due Dates

Notes, with short 4-5-sentence reflection will be collected by Friday of a given week. You may choose to take one week off during each term.

Term 1

  1. Week of 9/8—Course Introduction—SHORT 300-word EXPLANATION: WHY HONORS/INTENSIVE? OR WHAT HAS EXCITED OR CHALLENGED YOU ABOUT SHAKESPEARE? (Due Mon, 9/15)
  1. Week of 9/15—Summer Reading—Shakes. Life and Times—FROM THE SHAKESPEARE PAGE, CLICK ON “IN SEARCH OF SHAKESPEARE” AND WATCH THE FIRST EPISODE, “PART 1: A TIME OF REVOLUTION.”
  1. Week of 9/21—Shakes. biography; Richard II, Henry IV Pt. 1—WATCH THE SECOND PART OF “IN SEARCH OF SHAKESPEARE,” “THE LOST YEARS.”
  1. Week of 9/28—Henry IV Pt. 1—CHOOSE ONE:
  2. VIEW SHAKESPEARE UNCOVERED: RICHARD II WITH DEREK JACOBI
  3. VIEW SHAKESPEARE UNCOVERED: HENRY IV AND V WITH JEREMY IRONS
  4. EMMA SMITH’S LECTURE ON RICHARD II
  5. EMMA SMITH’S LECTURE ON HENRY IV –ON WHY IS FALSTAFF FAT?
  6. EMMA SMITH’S LECTURE ON HENRY V
  7. READ HAROLD BLOOM’S CHAPTER ON HENRY IV.
  1. Week of 10/5— Henry IV Pt. 1—CHOICE (FROM ABOVE)
  1. Week of 10/13 (M—Columbus Day)— Henry IV Pt. 1—CHOICE
  1. Week of 10/19—Henry IV Pt. 1—CHOICE

Week of 10/26—Henry IV essay—NOTHING DUE

  1. Week of 11/2—Sonnets—CHOICE
  2. (FROM THE SONNETS PAGE) VIEW THE UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK’S “UNDERSTANDING SHAKESPEARE’S SONNETS”
  3. LISTEN TO AUTHOR NICHOLAS FOGG’S LECTURE ON THE SONNETS
  1. Week of 11/9 (Veterans Day)—The Comedies—Much Ado about Nothing—CHOOSE ONE:
  2. VIEW “THE COMEDIES” WITH JOELY RICHARDSON IN “SHAKESPEARE UNCOVERED”
  3. LISTEN TO DR. RALPH COHEN FROM THE AMERICAN SHAKESPEARE COMPANY TALK ABOUT MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING OR AS YOU LIKE IT
  4. LISTEN TO EMMA SMITH’S LECTURE ON MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, TWELFTH NIGHT, OR AS YOU LIKE IT
  5. READ BLOOM ON MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, TWELFTH NIGHT, OR AS YOU LIKE IT

Term 2

  1. Week of 11/16— Much Ado about Nothing—CHOICE

Week of 11/23 (Thanksgiving)—Much Ado—NOTHING DUE

  1. Week of 11/30— Twelfth Night—CHOICE
  1. Week of 12/7— Twelfth Night—CHOICE
  1. Week of 12/14—Much Ado/Twelfth Night (and As You Like It)—CHOICE

Week of 12/21— Much Ado/Twelfth Night (and As You Like It) comparison essay—NOTHING DUE

[12/24-1/4—DECEMBER RECESS]

  1. Week of 1/4—Heintzelman Creative Writing—VIEW SHAKESPEARE UNCOVERED—HAMLET WITH DAVID TENNANT
  1. Week of 1/11—Memorizing Shakespeare; Hamlet pre-reading—READ THE SOURCE MATERIAL FOR HAMLET, BELLEFOREST’S 1570 TRANSLATION OF THE “HYSTORIE OF HAMBLET”
  1. Week of 1/19 (MLK Day)—Hamlet—LISTEN TO STANFORD’S MARTIN EVANS’S FIRST LECTURE ON HAMLET, ON THE VARIOUS REVOLUTIONS OF TIME 1500s

Term 3

  1. Week of 1/25—Hamlet—LISTEN TO EVANS’S SECOND LECTURE, ON THE REASONS FOR HAMLET’S DELAY
  1. Week of 2/1— Hamlet—LISTEN TO EVANS’S THIRD LECTURE, ON THE PROBLEMS WITH THE PLAY

Week of 2/8—Hamlet essay—CHOICE

  1. READ A.C. BRADLEY’S LECTURE ON HAMLET, LECTURE IV
  2. LISTEN TO EMMA SMITH’S LECTURE ON HAMLET
  3. * RECOMMENDED: LISTEN TO BBC IN OUR TIME’S DISCUSSION ON SHAKESPEARE AND HAMLET WITH HAROLD BLOOM AND JAQUELINE ROSE
  4. READ BLOOM ON HAMLET OR OTHELLO
  5. SEE VARIOUS OTHER ARTICLES OR VIDEOS ON THE WEBSITE

[2/16-20—WINTER VACATION]

  1. Week of 2/22—Hamlet—CHOICE
  1. Week of 2/29— King Lear—READ THE SOURCE MATERIAL FOR KING LEAR AND LISTEN TO BBC’S IN OUR TIME DISCUSSION OF THE PLAY
  1. Week of 3/7—King Lear—CHOOSE ONE:
  2. READ BRADLEY’S LECTURE VII ON KING LEAR
  3. READ JAN KOTT’S ESSAY ON KING LEAR, “KING LEAR OR ENDGAME”
  4. READ BLOOM ON LEAR
  5. LISTEN TO EMMA SMITH’S LECTURE ON KING LEAR
  6. LISTEN TO BBC’S IN OUR TIME RADIO PODCAST ON KING LEAR
  7. LISTEN TO ANY OF CHARLES ALTIERI’S LECTURES ON LEAR (he’s a fun and animated lecturer)
  8. VIEW HARVARD’S MARGORIE GARBER’S (90-MIN) LECTURE ON KING LEAR (COUNTS FOR TWO ASSIGNMENTS)
  9. SEE VARIOUS OTHER ARTICLES OR VIDEOS ON THE WEBSITE
  1. Week of 3/14—King Lear—CHOICE
  1. Week of 3/21 (MCAS ELA testing)—King Lear—CHOICE

Week of 3/28—synthesis essay—NOTHING DUE

Week of 4/4—synthesis essay—NOTHING DUE

Term 4

No Weekly Criticism requirement

EXAMPLE ASSIGNMENT

Alan Reinstein

Honors Criticism: Shakespeare Uncovered: Macbeth

September 12, 2014

  • Ethan Hawke—host
  • Thinking about murder—NYC and
  • Not supposed to say the name of the play—conjures witches
  • Darkest of all Shakespeare’s plays
  • Draws a beautiful portrait of a bloody king
  • If you play the part, you must seek out some truth about it.
  • Explores the darker side of the human psyche
  • What’s powerful is that it’s not a play about a monster—but a man…
  • Difficult role for an actor—because you have to see this side of yourself, this violent side
  • Playing the part means asking tough questions.
  • Playing the role
  • Seek out scholars
  • Watch as many performances as you can
  • He watches Orson Welles thoughts—you can never live up to the words
  • Hawke summarizes elements of the play
  • There’s so much violence in the play—but there’s the supernatural witches that makes the story superb. This is the genius of the play.
  • The evil inspiration comes from the witches
  • Do the witches make it happen—or only report what will happen.
  • What’s scary about the story is that it’s the simple characteristic of ambition that is at the heart of Macbeth’s character.
  • Witches today are different from during Shakespeare’s time.
  • Witches were commonplace for the early modern audience—at Shakespeare’s theater.
  • The audience would have connected to the witches
  • Even King James I took witches seriously.
  • This play about killing the king was clearly a powerful idea.
  • There is the idea
  • The play questions the source of evil.
  • The question of the supernatural is at the heart of the play: Do the witches cause the murders or only foresee it?
  • Is the driving force supernatural and external OR is it internal?
  • What turns Macbeth into a murderer?
  • Hawke wants to find out about the historical Macbeth.
  • Goes to Dunsinane Hill in Scotland.
  • There was a fort—but not a castle
  • Duncan’s death—in Shakespeare—Macbeth is the aggressor.
  • However, historically, Duncan was advancing on Macbeth’s territory—and Macbeth kills Duncan on the battlefield.
  • How did the Shakespeare version come about?
  • Because Macbeth is the loser, he is invented as a tyrant. These histories are then invented.
  • Also Hawke wants to understand Lady Macbeth.
  • Discussion of famous Lady Macbeths
  • Towering over Macbeth
  • Lady Macbeth as powerful? Or as sexually alluring
  • Bullying or seductive?
  • It is one of the happiest marriages in Shakespeare.
  • People want to use Lady Macbeth as the source of Macbeth’s evil?
  • Does she make him a killer?
  • Who is in control? Lady Macbeth or her husband?
  • Garber: Lady Mac asks the question of what a man is. How brave can he be…
  • That moment—if he doesn’t do it, he will be shamed in the eyes of his wife forever.
  • Hawke—It certainly feels that she’s dominant
  • You can feel her manipulating him. But he wants to be manipulated.
  • How would I play the dagger scene? Richard Easton is going to help Hawke with the scene.
  • To play the role—you need to understand the language, the words—but you also need to break down the rules that Shakespeare has set up
  • The lines are very hard to understand—as an actor—I need to really understand what’s happening in the play.
  • Exploring 2.2—after Macbeth has committed the murder
  • Shock and numbness and denial are the first responses after one has committed a brutal crime
  • Shakespeare understands
  • The language of Macbeth reflects the breaking down of language and the mind. Macbeth is frozen.
  • You can never go back—the absolute finality of the world—you can never go back.
  • The act of killing changes everything!
  • Once you do it, he thinks it’ll be done—but it’s never done
  • Dance, movement, and mime—trying to show the scene without the use of language. Take the words away—and see what happens…
  • Macbeth and his wife are in this together.
  • Love is the focal point of the act of violence
  • The Macbeths do something together that neither could possibly do alone.
  • Each justifies the act to each other.
  • Anthony Sher researched the response to dreaming that one sees the murder victim.
  • The Macbeths at the banquet—great intimacy here.
  • But this moment also separates them. They are never seen on the stage together again. And Lady Macbeth breaks down after this.
  • The sleepwalking scene is among the most horrifying scenes in all theater.
  • You watch her unravel. Garber: you don’t expect her to have the breakdown.
  • Macbeth seems to do the opposite—he keeps everything in and keeps going. He has no option but to continue…He must plow his way on.
  • She lets loose this creature. He’s gone past the point where they could ever enjoy their power.
  • The First Folio is the first place that Macbeth appears…would have been lost otherwise.
  • The great speech from Macbeth—“Tomorrow, tomorrow…”
  • His vision of the world is so nihilistic… He can no longer feel.
  • This is what happens when you commit murder without remorse: You lose the capacity to feel.
  • He is like an animal trapped in a corner.
  • What created the destruction?
  • Was it the witches or was it ambition.
  • What he is really most afraid of is already inside.
  • It is a tragedy because there are so many points when he could turn back but he doesn’t.
  • Shakespeare never holds people at arms length…He always says, it’s you, it’s me—a recognition of shared humanity.
  • Hawke—the trick is making people care about Macbeth.

Response

The thing that resonates the most with me is what Anthony Sher says just at the end—that Shakespeare’s gift is his refusal to create characters that are distant from us, whom we are incapable of relating to. All of these tragic figures, like Macbeth, are like us. We are capable of similar actions; we can’t say, “Well, that’s definitely not me.” This makes sense to me as a way of conceiving of Shakespeare’s greatness. I also found the scene with the dancers enacting the scene after the murder to be exceptionally moving.