Due in class Monday, April 30: 2 pages (500 words), numbered and double-spaced.

CHOOSE ONE TOPIC (on a play different from your choice for Writing Assignment #2):

Topic 1. Prince Hal. “I am so good a proficient in one quarter of an hour, that I can drink with any tinker in his own language” (1 Henry IV, 2. 5. 15-17). In almost every play, Shakespeare portrays one or more characters as having a mastery with words: King Richard in Richard II, Prince Hal and Falstaff in Henry IV, King Henry in Henry V, Theseus and Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, Portia in Merchant of Venice, Rosalind in As You Like It. Princes and clowns, officials and rogues, men and women: verbal mastery shows up in a wide variety of characters. Pick a play and write an essay in which you analyze a leading character and the effect of his or her verbal mastery.

Topic 2. Romeo. “O sweet Juliet, / Thy beauty hath made me effeminate / And in my temper soften’d valor’s steel!” (Romeo, 3. 1. 108-09). Repeatedly, and often at critical moments, as in the situation where Romeo utters these words, Shakespeare’s characters speak with passion or authority or comic playfulness about their own gender identity or someone else’s. Pick a play and write an essay in which you analyze a leading character and the effect of his or her words about gender identity.

Remember, when you write an essay, that you are arguing a position and point of view.  It is your task to persuade your reader of what you see and understand about the play you are treating.  Support what you say with appropriate quotes and specific references to the action and language of the play, citing act, scene and line numbers.  For instance, Gaunt speaks for what is felt to be sacred about England in Richard II when he describes it as “this earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, / This other Eden, demi-paradise” (2. 1. 40-41). Do not write just plot summary without having something to say about it.  Make each paragraph count.  Each sentence, too.

Also: if you use sources in Shakespeare criticism, be sure to indicate your usage with footnotes and entries in your list of Works Cited.

My office hours are Mondays, 1:00 - 3:00, and by appointment

Be sure to review statements on these topics, through links on the course webpage.