Fall 2000	Mr. Pierce
ENGLISH 309	Rice 106, (440) 775-8583
MWF, 3:30-4:20	Office hours: MW, 1:30-3:00;
King 327	TTh, 11:00-12:00
	E-mail: Robert.Pierce@oberlin.edu

SHAKESPEARE IN DIALOGUE

Required texts:

Jonson, Ben. Three Comedies. Ed. Michael Jamieson. Penguin.

Marlowe, Christopher. Doctor Faustus and Other Plays. Ed. David Bevington and Eric Rasmussen. Oxford.

Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. Ed. Sylvan Barnet. Signet

__________. The Merchant of Venice. Ed. Kenneth Myrick. Signet.

__________. Othello. Ed. Alvin Kernan. Signet.

__________. Richard II. Ed. Matthew Black. Pelican.

__________. The Tempest. Ed. Robert Langbaum. Signet.

Webster, John. The Duchess of Malfi. Dover.

(Note: These are the texts stocked by the book store. You may use other editions, but be sure to have a text that you can bring to class every day.)

Assignments:

Sept. 8	Edward II
Sept. 18	Richard II
Sept. 25	Doctor Faustus (A-text)
Oct. 4	Macbeth
Oct. 13	FIRST PAPER DUE
Oct. 23	The Jew of Malta
Oct. 30	The Merchant of Venice
Nov. 6	Volpone
Nov. 13	Othello
Nov. 22	The Duchess of Malfi
Dec. 1	The Alchemist
Dec. 8	The Tempest
Dec. 13	SECOND PAPER DUE

Course requirements:

Attendance and participation in class

Ten one-page comments

Two papers about 5-7 pages

Participation in a scene and in preparing scene journal

For each play except the one for which you participate in a scene, on the first day the play is assigned turn in a written comment of about a page on a critical topic that interests you. Comments can be experimental, tentative, far-out, pedantic, or whatever; I will not grade them but will write brief responses and may draw on them for class discussion. You may use the topic given below or write on something else that you would rather talk about. Comments may be turned in late for credit with a legitimate excuse.

Sept. 8	Defend one of the three models of Elizabethan tragedy on the handout as a shape for Marlowe's portrayal of the fall of Edward II.
Sept. 18	Several characters in Richard II claim that Providence intervenes in historical events. Do occurrences in the play support their view?
Sept. 15	Faustus is a hero of learning, and his distinctive quality is manifested in pursuit of magic. As the exemplum of learning what is magic like in this play?
Oct. 4	Faustus makes the crucial decision for his tragedy in accepting the pact with Mephistopheles. At that point he commits hiself (though perhaps not irrevocably) to the powers of evil. How does Shakespeare portray Macbeth's parallel decision?
Oct. 23	In the Prologue to The Jew of Malta Machiavelli asks us to "grace [Barabas] as he deserves." Since this Machiavelli is something of a comical monster, like Barabas himself, this raises the issue of how we react to Marlowe's tragic hero. If Faustus' distinctive quality is learning, what is Barabas', and what is its standing in the world of the play?
Oct. 30	Imagine yourself as playing the part of Shylock after having played Barabas. How, if at all, would you alter your acting style?
Nov. 6	As in Shakespeare's comedy, the city of Venice is almost a character in Volpone. What picture of Venice does Jonson give?
Nov. 13	The Merchant of Venice, Volpone, and the first act of Othello all raise the issue of justice. Othello is, like Shylock, a stranger seeking justice from Venice, and like Volpone he breaks through deception to reveal the truth about himself. What are the implications of Othello's appearance before the Council?
Nov. 22	In the Jacobean stereotype a widow is a figure of lustful cunning, usually comic. How does Webster use the stereotype in his portrayal of the Duchess?
Dec. 1	Alchemy is both the subject and the central metaphor of Jonson's play. Its center is transformation or metamorphosis, whether of base metals into gold or lower souls into higher ones, so-called spiritual alchemy. What are the metaphoric implications of alchemy in The Alchemist?
Dec. 8	Full fathom five thy father lies; Of his bones are coral made. How is metamorphosis different in The Tempest from in The Alchemist?

For each of the two papers analyze some aspect of one of the plays from the perspective of intertextuality. You may relate the play to another play from this course, but avoid extensively rehashing points we have covered in class. You should indicate some familiarity with the critical conversation about your central play, but construct your own argument with occasional references to other critics. You should indicate your outside reading with a brief bibliography.

Each group should learn the lines, plan out how to perform the scene, rehearse it diligently, present it on the day assigned, and on the day of performance hand in a commentary of 3-4 pages on your production decisions and how they contribute to your group's vision of the scene. After the performance your group should stay in front to discuss it with the class. See the following page for suggestions.

Below are some questions to think about as you study the plays of this course. The first group are questions to be considered scene by scene. The second group look back at the whole play.

I.

1. Choose one character in the scene: what is that character trying to achieve? How does he or she go about it? What resistance does he or she encounter, whether from outside or from inside?

2. How are the other characters reacting to what is said? (Don't forget silent characters.) How does our perception differ from the characters'?

3. Are there any parallels or contrasts suggested between characters? between events? between intentions and actual outcomes?

4. What kinds of language are in the scene? How do characters differ in their language? What shifts occur within one character? within one speech?

5. How are the setting and props important to this scene?

II.

1. What is the relationship between this play and ritual or ceremony? Are there rituals in the play? Is the play itself a ritual act?

2. The term "play" suggests a contrast with work and thus emphasizes the play as entertainment. Is this play play? Is it work? Is it about the contrast between the two?

3. Hamlet says that drama holds the mirror up to nature. Does this play do so? What kind of mirror? What does it show? distort? Why?

4. Genres are important parts of drama because they create a set of expectations and conventions. If a play is tragic, it is likely to be concerned with the heroic and to use tragic irony, in which characters' actions have results very different from their intentions. Comedies usually emphasize entertainment, but they can also be serious. They often focus on characters as types, that is, socially defined roles. What genre is this play most closely related to? What are the effects of its conventionality and its breaks with convention?

5. How is the world of this play constructed? What are its main qualities? Which characters seem most/least attuned to it?

6. How are the characters constructed? What implications does that have for what it means to be human? for being a part of the society portrayed? In this play do characters change?

7. What is the role of symbolism in the play (if any)? How does the play give imaginative power to its symbols?

8. A play is normally written for a specific kind of theater, using certain theatrical conventions. How do such elements affect this play?

9. Plays are shaped to evoke some kind of audience response, for example, varying degrees of detachment toward or involvement with individual characters. By what means is that done in this play, and with what effect?