For Wednesday: Shakespeare, The Sonnets, Part 5

Read the following Sonnets for our last (sigh) official class on The Sonnets, even though we'll be discussing your Paper #2 assignment on Friday (so I guess that still counts). However, I tried to summarize the rest of the 'story' of the Sonnets up with the following Sonnets, though feel free to read more around them--I still left out some great ones! 

Read the following for Wednesday's class: 116, 121, 126, 127, 129, 130, 134, 135, 138, 144.

We'll do an in-class writing response when you come to class on Wednesday, but consider some of the following ideas:

* What makes Sonnet 126 different from all the rest? Look less at what the sonnet is saying than how it is written...compare how it looks on the page to other sonnets (hint, hint).

* Sonnet 116 is one of the most famous sonnets in the entire sequence, almost as much as Sonnet 18, and is often read at weddings. What makes this sonnet so traditionally romantic, and why is it coming so late in the sequence (especially since he ends things with the young man in Sonnet 126)? Is it out of place?

* How does Sonnet 121 seemt to negate Sonnet 116, and why do they come so close together in the sequence?

* Sonnet 127 is the first one featuring the "Dark Mistress," as most scholars call her. How is his relationship markedly different with her than the Young Man?

* Sonnet 130 is another super famous one, and is often contrasted with Sonnet 18. Is this also a romantic sonnet? How is his love and appreciation different for the woman than the man?

* Look at all the possible meanings of "will" in Sonnet 135, one of which is the poet's own name, Will. Read the longer note on page 339 if you really want to open your eyes to all the possibilities! 

* What kind of relationship does the poet have with the mistress by Sonnet 138? Is this deep love and affection? Deep distrust and paranoia? Or a reluctant truce?

Class Updates!

 I sent everyone an e-mail about this, but I wanted to post it here as well just in case. Here's what to expect for the rest of this week and next week:

* I sent everyone the In-Class Writing Response to the Sonnets we planned to do today in class. You can bring that to class on Monday OR e-mail it to me between now and then. 

* The new questions for Monday are in the post BELOW this one. You can also find the Short Paper #2 assignment and the Mid-Term Assignment in the post below that one (though I handed them both out on Monday).

* The Short Paper #2 will NOT be due on Monday anymore. We'll move it two days back to Friday (next Friday, the 14th). The Mid-Term will have the same due date after Spring Break.

Let me know if you have any other questions! Hope to see you on Monday! 

For Monday (!): Shakespeare, The Sonnets, Part 4

NOTE: Since we're losing two days of class, I want to keep up with The Sonnets so we can roughly finish them before Spring Break. So read the following for Monday's class, and you can turn these in anytime this week.

Read the following Sonnets: 73, 78, 80, 82, 86, 87, 91, 94, 96, 110

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: In these later Sonnets, a fourth character seems to enter the scene, someone else to complicate the initial love triangle. Where do we see a fourth person (and a second rival for the young man's love)? Why might this rival be even more threatening than the Mistress?

Q2: As a playwright, Shakespeare not only draws from a stock of theatrical metaphors, but also adopts dramatic poses and rhetoric. Where might we see the poet adopting a theatrical 'mode' for greater effect? In other words, why might the poet be adopting a role or simply "acting out" to elicit a specific emotion from the young man? How do we know this poem might be a little out of place because of this attitude?  

Q3: Is the poet trying to end the relationship himself in these Sonnets, or do you feel he’s merely trying to deal with the fact that it’s been over for some time? Who broke up with whom? How do you read a Sonnet like 71, for example, by way of answering this question?

Q4: Do we get any more sense of who the Lover is based on these later Sonnets? Their class, rank, wealth, profession, etc.? Is Shakespeare this person’s inferior? Is he truly a younger man? What clues emerge as their relationship comes to its fatal conclusion? Is Shakespeare (or the poet) more forthcoming with information he might have previously withheld?

For Wednesday: Shakespeare, The Sonnets, Part 3

For Wednesday's class, read the following range of 10 Sonnets (though feel free to read others within this range as well):

Nos. 46, 53, 55, 57, 58, 62, 66, 68, 69, 71

We'll have an in-class writing response when you come to class. However, here are some ideas to consider as you read:

* Look for repetitions in Shakespeare--words that he repeats often in one poem, or a word that he plays on with several different meanings in one Sonnet. But whenever he repeats something, it's for a reason, to call attention to the idea behind the word.

* Does he continue to make excuses for the beloved's behavior, or is he more in 'attack' mode at this point? Who is winning the "civil war between  love and hate"? 

* Note when he switches back into "you" from "thou" in the poems, and try to figure out why he does this. What is the effect of using "you" in a poem, such as No.55, or 57? 

* Have the poems become more sophisticated as they go along? More complex? Darker? Stranger? What quality has changed over the course of 70 sonnets?

* How 'healthy' do you think the poet's love is for the beloved? Are there signs that this is pathological behavior? Could he be arrested for this behavior today? Are we supposed to condone the poet's sentiments? Or be afraid of them? (Remember, Shakespeare writes many plays about lovers who kill their beloved for questionable reasons, such as Othello).

Paper #2 and the Mid-Term Paper Assignments

Short Paper #2: Call and Response

INTRO: This short paper is designed to get you ‘into’ the Mid-Term paper by focusing on a brief close-reading exercise with The Sonnets. It’s very simple but will require you to really pay attention to the language so that you ANALYZE instead of just SUMMARIZE. This is the most important thing you can do when writing a literature paper.

THE PROMPT: Pick TWO Sonnets (no more) from anywhere in the sequence that you feel respond to one another almost literally. By this I mean that one Sonnet says something, and the other one responds to it, as if they are written by two different people. What makes you hear this ‘call and response’ in the poems? Who might be speaking in each one (it doesn’t just have to be Shakespeare and the Lover)? What ideas do they both share, and how does each one examine them? Does one question how the initial theme is presented? Is one more defensive and one more accusatory? Does the second one come to some sort of resolution or explanation about the first? Or does it end in an even greater mystery?

REQUIREMENTS: Try to CLOSE READ both poems, either by looking first at one and then the other, or by examining them together, examining shared themes or ideas. But don’t just say “this poem seems to say this, or makes me feel this” without showing us where and how. Remember how subjective literature is: what you see isn’t necessary what I see, or what someone else sees. So you have to show us where you see it and why you think it reads that way. Examine individual words, too, since words can be twisted and pulled in many directions. Don’t be afraid to use the word glossary on the left side of the Folder edition, too, to help you.

DUE: In-Class on Friday. the 14th (revised date). Obviously we haven’t read all The Sonnets yet, so just do what you can with the ones we’ve read by then. I want to discuss the connections you found in class since this could help everyone work on their Mid-Term papers. If you miss class, the paper is still due by class time.

 

Mid-Term Paper: He Said/He Said

For your more creative Mid-Term Paper, I want you to create a mini drama of connected poems for TWO ACTORS, each actor speaking FOUR Sonnets. The catch is that each Sonnet (except the very first) is a response to the one before it, as if they’re having an actual poetic conversation. So even though The Sonnets as we have them feature a single person speaking, imagine that these poems are actually a dialogue between two people, with one Sonnet by the Poet, and another Sonnet by the Lover, in response. You should decide WHO THESE PEOPLE ARE (they don’t have to be Shakespeare and the Lover, for example; they can be contemporary people, or characters in a movie or sitcom, and you can even swap their gender, age, etc.) and A STORY/BACKDROP for the Sonnets (such as—they work in an office together, or they’re a divorced couple, are two aging-movie stars, etc).

Your Paper should open with a Cast of Characters (explain who each character is) and a list of Four Acts, concluding with a One Sonnet Epilogue. Each Act Should have a general Title/Theme and should indicate which two Sonnets make up that Act. For example:

Actor 1: Jim from The Office

Actor 2: Pam from The Office

Act 1: The First Meeting: Sonnets 14 and 29

Act 2: Working Late at Night: Sonnets 53 and 74

Act 3: The Fatal First Kiss: Sonnets 28 and 92

Act 4: Going Our Separate Ways: Sonnets 124 and 134

Epilogue: Sonnet 145

 

The ‘writing’ part of your paper should briefly explain the conversation you see in each Act, and why you chose these Sonnets. Use a little close reading here to read AT LEAST ONE of the Sonnets to bring out the conversation between the two characters. Do this for all Four Acts and the Epilogue, explaining how this ‘winds up’ the entire drama. This doesn’t have to be too long or exhaustive, but I should get a sense that you didn’t just choose poems at random. I want to see the logic and the connection between the two sonnets that make them a dialogue. Feel free to use entire parts of your Short Paper #2 for this as well.

HAVE FUN with this, and try to imagine the Sonnets as a conversation (which in many ways they are) which goes back and forth, up and down, and sideways. Does anyone ‘win’ in this struggle, or do they both declare defeat? What do you want us to see about the characters through the Sonnets? Who is the betrayed and who the betrayer?

DUE MONDAY, MARCH 24^th BY 5pm (we do have class that day, but will be watching a film)