2 English 3216WA Final Examination Questions NOTE: This examination is open-book and in two (2) parts. Answers should be in the form of essays, not in point form. What you will find below are the instructions for each section, including a large number of questions/options, from which those in Part B of the examination will be selected. Open book, in this context, means you can bring the texts of the Shakespeare plays and the cancopy text of the non-shakespearean plays. You can work on Part A at home, ahead of time, but you must do the actual writing of it in the exam room at exam time. You cannot bring in a prepared version that you then copy out (autoplagiarism!). Part A is below. It is worth 50 marks. For Part B, ten of the twenty-five essay questions below (in the section labelled Part B ) will appear on the examination, and you will be required to do two of them. You can deal with the same play as you do for Part A but you cannot do two questions that deal with the same play exclusively. They are worth 25 marks each. Part A 50 marks Instructions: Choose one of the following scenes and do either question #1 or question #2: Macbeth 1.7, 2.1, 2.3, 4.3; The Duchess of Malfi: 1.2, 1.3, 2.1, 3.2, 4.2, or 5.2; Twelfth Night 1.5, 2.3, 5.1; The Shoemaker s Holiday: 1.1, 2.3, 4.5, or 5.2; The Tempest 1.2, 2.2, 4.1; Volpone 1.1-3, 3.2, 5.4 If your group presentation and/or your essay focused on one or two plays (rather than doing something that covered most of them), choose a play other than the one(s) used in your group presentation and other than that (or those) used for your essay. 1. You are writing a Reader s Guide to [whichever play you have selected] and your essay in response to this option will be your full account of this scene. You will need to explain in detail what goes on in the scene and how it fits into the play as a whole, remembering that every scene needs to function in at least three areas: 1) present interest, to hold the audience s attention; 2) retrospection and reminder, to keep the audience on track; and 3) foreshadowing and anticipation, to keep the audience guessing and projecting what will come next. You will also relate this scene to the play as a whole in terms of its contribution to plot, theme, character, patterns of imagery, etc. Feel free to make comments on any special effects (visual, auditory, etc.) that the text implies, and to explicate obscurities in diction, imagery, allusion, etc. 2. You are directing a production of the play (for either stage, film, video, or TV) and your essay in response to this option will consist of an explanation of your vision of the play (i.e., your overall interpretation or reading of the play) and how this scene fits into that, plus instructions you would be giving to your cast in terms of character (motivation, etc.), blocking (i.e., movement on the stage in relation to sets, props, and other actors), expression (gesture, voice, etc.), special effects, and so forth. You will need to explain in some detail why you make the choices you do. Don t forget to take into account that performances have audiences and that what might please a director or performer might not be clear or pleasing to the audience.
3 Part B 50 Marks Instructions: Answer two (2) of the following questions; 25 marks each. You cannot do two questions that deal with the same play exclusively. In those questions with an OR in them, do only one of the options provided. 1. Lady Macbeth s image of plucking the babe from her nipple and dashing its brains out lurks in the background of the play like a pervasive threat, a concentration of the central and complexly related images of blood and milk. Discuss in detail this comment on the play. 2. Macbeth and The Duchess of Malfi show a fascination with evil in its most virulent and universal aspect, with only a passing interest in larger political or cultural themes. 3. The crucial issue in Volpone is how will the bait of money affect such basic concerns as ties between man and wife, fathers and sons, the administration of justice, etc. Discuss in detail and assess this claim about Jonson s Volpone. 4. Tragedies are tragic because the absolute principles of Justice or Right cannot allow for human weaknesses. Characters are trapped by the opposition of irreconcilable ideals and implacable situations. There are no solutions to problems its characters face or create for themselves. Discuss in detail this observation, with respect to at least two of the plays studied this term. 5. Macbeth seeks invulnerability and destroys all sources of value in the process, but ironically he becomes what he most fears, the plaything of powerful feminine forces the weird sisters. Discuss in detail this analysis of the play. 6. The characters and incidents in The Shoemaker s Holiday are an odd and complex mixture of elements from courtly literature such as romance, folklore or legend, real history, and realism. Discuss in detail this comment on the play. 7. Something is rotten in the state of Malfi concealed evil, moral disease, and corruption are found in pretty well every character in the play. Discuss in detail this comment on the play. 8. Discuss in detail the varying views of male-female and male-male relationships held by the characters in any two of the plays studied this term. 9. Discuss in detail the similarities and differences between the characters of the Duchess and her two brothers (one of whom is her twin), and how these characteristics contribute to the characters actions, interactions, and fates. 10. Discuss in detail the political relevance (or other form of topicality) of two of the plays studied this term to the dramatist s own time.
4 11. Discuss in detail the relative roles of luck (or the unforeseeable), conscious human agency, and fate (or providence or destiny) in two of the plays we have studied this term. 12. Discuss the ways in which Webster deals with and complicates the theme of honour in The Duchess of Malfi. 13. Discuss the roles of the servants (or other such minor characters) in one of the plays studied this term. Consider in terms of plot, theme, character (both their own, and how they may bring out, develop, encourage, or reveal elements of the characters of others). 14. Discuss the ways in which The Shoemakers Holiday reflects or embodies the strategies designated by the terms festive comedy or the carnivalesque. Do not forget to deal with how the comic structure relates to the serious and potentially tragic elements of the play. OR Discuss Dekker s handling of the themes of poverty, war, wealth, and class in The Shoemakers Holiday. 15. Analyze the function of all the material objects used as props in one of the plays studied this term. Consider how they can be used to advance plot (or retard it), contribute to theme, develop or reveal (or conceal) character, how they can be manipulated by actors to suggest certain readings of the plays, etc. 16. The Duchess is frequently faulted in the play, and even by some critics, for marrying Antonio. Discuss in detail the various reasons this marriage could be seen as problematic for someone in her position(s). OR The main theme of The Duchess of Malfi is the conflict between personal merit and degree (i.e. inherited social position). Discuss this claim in detail. If you agree with this claim, explain why and also explain how, if at all, the conflict is resolved (either explicitly in the play or implicitly by means of Webster s clearly favouring one side in the debate and inclining us to do so too). If you disagree with this claim, explain what you take to be the central theme or issue of the play, and how Webster handles it. OR Among the vexed problems of The Duchess of Malfi is the motives of Bosola and Ferdinand. Explain why this is so, and why Webster created these characters in such an ambiguous fashion. OR Discuss the theme of justice vs injustice in The Duchess of Malfi or one of the other plays studied in this course. You could consider such matters as who is in charge of insuring that justice is done, whether those individuals fulfill their functions (and if they do not or cannot, why they do not or cannot); the relation between divine justice and human justice; the matter of taking justice into one s own hands, etc. 17. Evaluate one of the following assessments of The Tempest and provide examples to illustrate your claims (whether you agree or disagree with that assessment of the play): A. The Tempest is a Renaissance Lord of the Flies revealing that beyond civilization s constraining influence, human nature is a thing of darkness. B. The Tempest is ultimately about the very human feelings of virtue, forgiveness and love, not about the godlike detachment of playwright or magus.
5 C. The Tempest is a romantic comedy about the uses and abuses of power, magical or otherwise. D. The Tempest requires us, ultimately, to empathize with both Prospero and Caliban and thus, whether we like it or not, to see both sides of the dichotomy (whether expressed as art vs nature, civilization vs the state of nature, etc) as having validity. E. Prospero sets out to educate and remake others, but ends up educating and remaking himself. 18. Do funny-peculiar and funny-humorous ever blend in any of the comedies studied this term; how, why, and with what results for characters or audiences? 19. Traditional comedy is both subversive and conservative subversive in that it frequently challenges aspects of the status quo; conservative in that it seeks to regenerate rather than overthrow that status quo. Sometimes one of these impulses will predominate over the other (as when, despite subverting challenges to the establishment ideology in the course of the play, the conclusion leaves the status quo largely intact in the view both of characters and audience; or when, despite all the efforts of conservatism at the end, challenges to the status quo remain unanswered and hence still vital in the view either of characters or of the audience); sometimes they will be in a more or less equal tension. Discuss in detail the interplay of subversive and conservative elements in any two comedies studied this term. 20. Metafictions expose the mechanisms of story-telling processes to reveal the artistic means by which one creates characters and narrative substance, as well as the means by which an author attempts to control these characters and that substance, and, ultimately, to control the readers reactions and interpretations as well. Metafictional devices can not only underscore the desperate lengths writers will go to control meaning, but can also suggest how useless these measures are in the first place both the fictional discourse and the external reality to which it may refer or towards which it may gesture, overflow attempts to impose any single, stable, unifying meaning upon them. Discuss the use of metafictional devices in any play studied this term, and the effect they have on the viewing or reading audience. 21. According to the principle of order, people in their human relationships have certain obligations to themselves, to family, and to society. Using at least two of the plays studied this term, discuss these obligations and the things that threaten the fulfilment of them. What are the results when the order maintained by these obligations is overturned? 22. Discuss in detail the contribution of settings to the conveying of atmosphere, theme, character, etc. in two of the comedies. 23. Discuss in detail how the attempt to control one s own life/destiny plays a significant role in the actions of characters in any two plays studied this term. 24. Discuss in detail and evaluate one of the following assessments of Renaissance comedies, using whichever comedies you wish for illustrations and examples:
6 A. Goodness, serenity, and hope for the future are the dominant notes of early modern comedies. B. Early modern comedies give the viewer/reader a dialogic sort of conclusion; that is, a synthesis of a variety of previously discordant, competing voices, not into a single voice necessarily but into a harmonious chorus. C. Comedy regularly strives towards a happy ending that erases all earlier disruptions. Reconciliation is the hallmark of comic closure. However, since laughter is often discordant, malicious, or vindictive, it can disrupt the harmony towards which comedy moves rather than promote it. Paradox is thus at the heart of comedy D. The balance between comic perspective and tragic awareness is the cornerstone of Renaissance comedy E. Comedies play tricks based on illusion and make a joke out of the tenuousness of the grasp human beings have on reality. 25. Renaissance drama presents at least two kinds of villains 1) those who delight in evil for its own sake; and 2) those who feel driven to acts of evil they recognize to be wrong. Those of the first type are ultimately descended from the medieval Vice and show a much closer family resemblance (in terms of character, stage techniques, relationship to audience, resourcefulness, etc. Discuss in detail this appraisal, with respect to at least two of the plays studied this term.