English 127

Listed below find the topics for research for Lucia Mad that we will use for our study of the play on Tuesday, Nov. 28 (when we return from Thanksgiving Break).

This research and brief presentation will serve as your study question for that week. Where two people from the same class (the p.m. class) are working on the same topic, you might divide some responsibilities between you. If the a.m. and p.m. researchers want to help each other, also, please feel free to share materials, etc. If one person checks out the library's only copy of something, let the other one know so they can get it from OhioLink, or offer to share it with them.

During our 75-minute class, with 14 different topics, we won't have more than a few minutes each for a very brief initial report. We'll start class with a very, very brief statement from each person about their historical person or literary work -- a two-sentence identification. Give us a small capsule summary of the person's main accomplishments, life dates, period in Paris, relationship to Joyce or Beckett, or the relation of the literary work to quotations within the script or ideas within the script -- whatever Nigro might count on his audience knowing, minimally.

In smaller work groups, people will then share more insights about how their research can help us understand the play. Questions to answer will be to help us all explore how and why Nigro uses allusions to people, events, and literature to comment on the central themes of the play. Among these themes I would emphasize: art, insanity, love, memory, obsession, commitment, living life compared to making art about life, family relationships, expatriate existence, exile.

Consider how your research topic &emdash; an artwork, or a person's biography, or a period&emdash; is relevant to the methods and effects of Lucia Mad. The goal will be to get at how Nigro uses (distorts, exaggerates, caricaturizes, or carefully historicizes) the past. How and why does he treat real historical and literary figures as characters, make many references to events and people, quote from literary works, and misquote works? Use your report to help you and the class speculate on the effects and ideas Nigro is expressing through his dramatic world by using references and allusions to history.

After each topic, I have a few suggestions, and the names of the persons responsible. If you have a person, get a good biography and bring it along to class so people can see pictures, etc.; use the index to find names; use the web; use an encyclopedia; bring in copies of literary works so we can see them and read a tiny bit in each. The goal is not a complete report, but a helpful summary and your theories about the significance of your topic to the play.

1. Samuel Beckett: life dates; main literary works; attitudes; values; be ready to talk a little about his major works, Waiting for Godot and Endgame, but mostly about what he would have been doing in Paris in the 1930's and then what else he did with his life and writing. Someone else is responsible for Waiting for Godot specifically. What can you learn about the cousin with whom he was in love, and her relationship to the reminiscences in Krapp's Last Tape? Tell us about his marriage and whatever you can find out about his relationship to Nora Joyce, about his visiting Nora Joyce when she was institutionalized.

Researchers: Eliot Ballad a.m.

Ciciley Hoffman p.m.

2. James Joyce: life dates; main literary works; attitudes; values; be ready to talk a little about his period in Paris, his relationship with friends, Beckett, Nora, Lucia, Tom McGreevey, Yeats, etc. What can you tell us about his work on Finnegan's Wake; how long was he working on it; why and for how long was it called Work in Progress? What can you tell us about his eyesight, concern with money, other characteristics emphasized in the play?

Researchers: Dan Winetsky a.m.

Leeane Lesko p.m.

3. Nora Joyce: life dates; any information about her life; her own writing, letters to Joyce; her relationships with her children, Joyce's circle, etc.

Researchers: Alix Mansbach a.m.

Vanessa Tobar p.m.

4. Lucia Joyce: life dates; any information about her life; her own writing if anything available (may not be); her relationship to Beckett, Joyce, her mother, etc.

Researchers: Scott Ewart a.m.

Amanda Joshi and Jessie Perlik, p.m.

5. Carl Jung: life dates; his main ideas, theories and methods; any facts about his treatment of Lucia Joyce; his review of Ulysses (is that available?). Bring in some of his writings.

Researchers: Lauren Haynes a.m.

Samuel Whittington p.m.

6. Tom McGreevey: life dates; his friendships with key characters; accomplishments; some of his writings, if available.

Researchers: Thomas Taylor p.m.

7. William Butler Yeats and Lady Gregory: who were they and what relationship did they have; bring in Yeats poem to Lady Gregory that gets quoted in the play, beginning, "When you are old and grayÉ." What type of writing did each do, and why are they significant in Irish literature and politics? What were their life dates and their values, etc.

Researchers: Jesse Alson-Milkman a.m.

Laurence Yeung p.m.

8. Ernest Hemingway: life dates, major works, what was he doing in Paris in the 30's and what relationship did his crowd have to the Irish writers and other American and English writers? What was his writing like? Bring in some of his work that would have been published or written by or in this period.

Researchers: Elizabeth Fry a.m.

Rebecca French p.m.

Anna Gardner-Andrews p.m.

9. Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas: life dates; majors works; what were they doing in Paris I the 30's and what relationships did they have to the Irish writers, and others, etc. Bring in some examples of Gertrude Stein's writing and some of her work what would have been published or written by or in this period.

Researchers: Evelyn Lane a.m.

Lindsey Gauzza p.m.

Molly McFadden p.m.

10. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
Nigro makes several allusions in Lucia Mad to the hero, Stephen Daedalus, who is a fictionalized version of James Joyce. When was this novel published? What other allusions do you find to it (Stephen D. has a theory about Shakespeare playing Hamlet's ghost that's referred to as Joyce' s theory), especially to Stephen's ending notions of cunning, exile, and alienation? Bring the work to class and be ready to help us explore how it works and how Nigro uses it.

Researchers: Erik Talvitie a.m.

Steve Prince p.m.

11. Ulysses by James Joyce
Nigro also makes several allusions to this great masterwork of the 20th century. Please be ready to give the class an idea of how it works and what it sounds like. Notice the allusion to Molly Bloom as Milly Bloom and any other important allusions you can identify. Tell us why this work has been so influential and anything about the censorship problems in the U.S.

Researchers: Noah McIntyre a.m.

Anthony Damico p.m.

12. Finnegan's Wake by James Joyce
Lucia Mad makes numerous allusions to this other great masterwork, a very difficult and challenging one, of the 20th century. Please be ready to give the class an idea of how it works and what it sounds like. Bring a copy. See if you can get a concordance to it, or a copy with notes. Notice the allusions it throughout the play, when it was Work in Progress. How long was Joyce working on it; what passages are being quoted, misquoted, parodied? Any ideas about why and how Lucia would be characterized as the embodiment of it by her father or by herself?

Researchers: Rebecca Fülöp a.m.

Lindsay Baker p.m.

13. Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
Several references to aspects of this great work of the 20th century and its centrality in Beckett's thinking figure strongly in Lucia Mad. bring in a copy and be ready to discuss a little of how you see it as related to Beckett's character, dialogue, and non-action in Lucia Mad.

Researchers: Kitzie Winship a.m.

Anne Johnson p.m.

14. Alfred, Lord Tennyson
His poem is the song that Lucia sings at the beginning and end of each act; find out more about this poem and if it was set to music by composers (check in the Conservatory library; ask for help from reference librarian there). Can you learn if was a poem that meant something special to Joyce, Beckett, or Lucia, in fact (talk to the people doing their biographies)? What else can you tell us about this 19th century English poet, who was Poet Laureate of England during the Victorian period that seems like it could be relevant to Lucia Mad?

Researchers: Rachel Schaffran a.m.

Monica Jackson p.m.