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Midterm Exam

Midterm Exam. Three Parts Identifications (15 points) Multiple Choice (15 points) Long Answer (15 points). Identifications. These will mostly derive from passages referred to in lecture. Ex: O monstrous beast, how like a swine he lies! Grim Death, how foul and loathsome is thine image!

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Midterm Exam

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  1. Midterm Exam Three Parts • Identifications (15 points) • Multiple Choice (15 points) • Long Answer (15 points)

  2. Identifications • These will mostly derive from passages referred to in lecture. Ex: O monstrous beast, how like a swine he lies! Grim Death, how foul and loathsome is thine image! Sirs, I will practice on this drunken man. (Identify the monstrous beast referred to.)

  3. Multiple Choice • These questions will draw on information from the lectures. Ex: The title-page to the 1623 Folio of Shakespeare’s plays claims that the edition is published according to A. the most Expensive printing devices B. the real Shakespeare C. both Good and Bad Quartos D. the True Original Copies E. the Spirit of all times

  4. Long Answer • You will be given a long passage and asked to: • identify the play and character speaking (1 point) • briefly explain the context (2 points) • Make 6 points of significance about the passage (12 points)

  5. Richard II The Marks of Kingship From Ceremony to Farce

  6. Questions: • Economic metaphors? What’s with all the references to money? • What meaning do the repeated examples of punning contribute to the play? • What is the effect of the play’s attention to the names of things: their changes, manipulations, loss?

  7. Marks of Kingship What distinguishes a King from subjects? Is Sovereignty simply a theatrical role? • 3.2.164-165, p59 • 5.2.23-28, p92

  8. Queen Elizabeth: “We Princes…are set on stages, in the sight and view of all the world duly observed.” King James: The King is “as one set on a stage, whose smallest actions and gestures, all the people gazingly do behold” —Basilicon Doron

  9. Economic Metaphors Richard:“Thy word is current with him for my death But dead, thy kingdom cannot buy my breath.” (1.3.230-231, p21) Northum: “Words, life and all, old Lancaster hath spent.” York:“Be York the next that must be bankrout so! Though death be poor, it ends a mortal woe.” (2.1.150-152, p32) Richard: “And if my word be sterling yet in England, Let it command a mirror hither straight” (4.1.263-264, p83)

  10. A Discourse of the Commonweal (published 1581) • A dialogue involving members from different social strata (Knight, Doctor, Merchantman, Husbandman, Capper). • Currency not only symbolizes physical goods but the credit of the King’s words. • Concerned with both causes of economic instability and social unrest afflicting England in the mid-sixteenth century.

  11. Origin of Coins “Whereby began the names of coins, so that the people needed not to be troubled with weighing and trying of every piece, being assured by the mark printed that every piece contained the weight that was signified by the mark set on every one. The prince’s credit was then such among their subjects as they doubted nothing therein.” —Thomas Smith, A Discourse of the Commonweal

  12. Summary of key points: • The King assigns value, and this extends beyond money to include social degree. • Value the King assigns dependent on credit he enjoys among the people. • His word, therefore, is a form of currency. • Destabilizing currency analogous to destabilizing social order.

  13. Richard’s mistakes Legal Errors • He has subjected himself to the law by leasing out his lands. • In denying Bolingbroke his hereditary rights, he has violated social hierarchy.

  14. Only punning? 1.3.254-256, p21-22 Bol: “I have too few [words] to take my leave of you, When the tongue’s office should be prodigal To breathe the abundant dolor of the heart.” 5.5.67-68, p105 Groom: “Hail, royal Prince! Richard: “Thanks, noble peer! The cheapest of us is ten groats too dear.”

  15. Name changes and Nameless Woes • Hereford  Lancaster  Henry IV • Aumerle  Rutland • King Richard  “I have no name, no title” • (2.2.39-40, p40) Queen: “But what it is that is not yet known what, I cannot name; ’tis nameless woe I wot.”

  16. 3.3.126-127, p66 Richard: “We do debase ourselves, cousin, do we not, To look so poorly and to speak so fair?”

  17. 4.1.284-288, p84 Richard: Was this the face that faced so many follies, And was at last outfaced by Bolingbroke? A brittle glory shineth in this face, As brittle as the glory in the face, [Throws glass down] For there it is, cracked in a hundred shivers.”

  18. Coins of Richard II

  19. Coins of Henry IV

  20. “Our scene is alt’red from a serious thing,And now changed to “The Beggar and the King.”

  21. Act IV, scene 1 • Cf. with Act.1, scene 1: what’s new? • What’s the truth? Is there any resolution? Are we any closer to discovering Woodstock’s murderer?

  22. Act V, scene 3 • Film Clip (6 ½ minutes) • Dramatic effects of this scene? • Echo(es) of earlier scenes? • Other details paralleling Richard and Henry’s rules: • Aumerle’s confederacy reformulates the conspiracy of Ross, Willoughby, and Northumberland. • Question of Woodstock’s murder remains. • Richard’s murder echoes the murder of Woodstock.

  23. a “new world”? • No! same scenes performed by different actors. • Yes! They’re actors and the reigning metaphor is one of theatricality. • Performance privileged over “words.”

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