For our final week of class, we will be discussing the ways in which the materials of our course have had an afterlife in contemporary times. You may take this on as an individual project or as a shared presentation, but please let me know as soon as you can if you are choosing … [Read more…]
For this week you will be submitting an abstract of roughly 150-200 words describing your final presentation and short assignment. The fundamental ingredients for a good abstract can and usually do include the following: Subject—The literary works being discussed, their creators and dates Claim and significance—announcement about the importance of your approach to the … [Read more…]
Select one of the essays from the Bibliography section of the Norton Shakespeare for either All is True/Henry VIII or Comedy of Errors (You may choose another essay, but please run it past me first; if you don’t have the Norton Shakespeare, look at a classmate’s/library copy for the bibliography, or consult the bibliography for the edition you use). You should … [Read more…]
For your second assignment you will focus on some dimension of English Protestant culture, choosing between two texts (the Bible and Spenser’s Faerie Queene) and examining how these texts reflect historical shifts in religious belief or politics during the time we are studying. 1. Image and Textual Analysis. Select an image or series of images from Biblical illustrations and … [Read more…]
In our first weeks in this course, we have been asking how history can inform our study of literature and, conversely, how literary forms of analysis and thought can open our eyes to new ways of thinking about history. For this first writing assignment, I would like you to pursue this line of questioning in … [Read more…]
“What seest thou…in the dark-backward and abysm of time?”–Shakespeare, The Tempest How does our history shape the present moment? The future? Which stories from the past do we tell again (and again), and which do we choose to ignore or leave buried? What, in the words of Shakespeare’s Prospero, do we see when we look into … [Read more…]