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The “Shakespeare” group should answer two of the following:
Q1: In his attempt to seduce Lady Teazle, Joseph Surface claims
that “ ‘Tis this very conscious innocence that is of the greatest prejudice to
you. What is it that makes you negligent of forms and careless of the world’s
opinion? Why, the consciousness of your innocence. What makes you impatient of
Sir Peter’s temper and outrageous at his suspicions? Why, the consciousness of
your own innocence” (4.3). What does he mean by this, and why is this a ‘truth’
in the logic of eighteenth-century English society?
Q2: Sir Peter continually proclaims Joseph Surface as “a man
of sentiment…there is nothing in the world so noble as a man of sentiment”
(4.3). The Oxford English Dictionary defines this as (among other definitions),
“What one feels with regard to something; mental attitude (of approval or
disapproval, etc.); an opinion or view as to what is right or agreeable.” How
does Joseph seem to embody this quality, and by extension, why does Charles not
embody it?
Q3: Lady Teazle is a little like The Wife of Bath in her
eagerness to fight and uphold her opinions in marriage. However, she seems less
admirable than Chaucer’s heroine, and even Sir Peter proclaims of her that “I
believe you capable of anything that’s bad” (3.1). If you were portraying her
as an actress, how would you play her: as a social-climbing flirt who seeks to
usurp Lady Sneerwell from her throne? Or a young girl hopelessly out of her
depth who is simply trying to keep her head above water, and is ‘acting’ rather
than ‘being’?
Q4: In Act 4, Charles sells all of his family’s portraits “wholesale,”
most of them for extremely modest sums to pay off his debts. Why would this
scene be extremely funny—but shocking!—for audiences of the time, and does it
confirm his degradation or offer hope of his humanity? Do we read it
differently today, do you think?
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