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Those of you whose last names begin with letters from F to R must submit a five-page paper (1250 to 1500 words) instead of taking the exam. You may either write on one of the suggested topics or choose your own topic; if you choose your own you should clear it with me by e-mail ahead of time. Please remember that you are responsible for the materials in the Comedies section of the web site; many of the topics below cannot be adequately addressed without a careful consideration of those materials. These topics are suggested:
Discuss the function of the fairy world in the action of A Midsummer Night's Dream.
In A Midsummer Night's Dream and As You Like It the lovers must flee a repressive court and escape into a green world in which nature counteracts law. In Measure for Measure there is no escape from the city. Its world is radically urban, closed and fragmented, and its boundaries are not marked by a tonic forest but by suburban brothels. Discuss.
ENGLISH 205 STYLE SHEET * Titles of plays should be underlined or italicized, not set in quotes or in bold type. *When quoting verse, line breaks should he indicated by a slash, (and the slash set off on each side by a space):Struck by the events of the first four acts, Duke Theseus opines that "the lunatic, the lover and the poet / Are of imagination all compact" (V.i.7-8). * If you block-quote a passage of verse, simply preserve the original line-breaks. Do not decrease your font size for block quotations. (If they are taking up too much space, you are probably quoting too much material.) *Number your pages. Double-space. Give your paper a title. Proofread. * When citing a passage in a play, the act, scene, and line numbers should be set apart by periods. Roman numerals are fine for act and scene numbers (in which case act should be capitalized and scene in lower case), but some style manuals prefer arabic numbers. Place the citation in parentheses after the close of the quotation marks (separated by a space). If the citation is in the body of your paper, place terminal punctuation after the citation. (In a block-quotation, terminal punctuation precedes the parenthetic citation.) Citation should look like this: Puck then applies the play's title to the play itself: "Think but this, ... / That you have but slumb'red here While these visions did appear" (V.i.424—426).
Think but this, and all is mended, * If you cite an on-line resource, you must still give an author, title, and date, just as if it were a text in a library. Supplying the URL is not sufficient. (Consult The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 6th Ed., or an online summary of it if you are curious about the correct procedure for quotation, citation, or other matters of style.) ADVICE FOR PAPER WRITERS IN ENGLISH 205 1. Take advantage of all of your resources. Although you should primarily refer to the text when writing your paper, you should not forget that class lectures, the web site, and the instructor are all valuable sources of information. The lectures should help you to pinpoint the important themes and passages in each play, and they serve to demonstrate what effective textual analysis looks like. Although you should write your own paper in your own way, do not be afraid to use the information presented in the lectures. That is why it was given to you. The web site has a great deal of historical and cultural information about Shakespeare's age and can be essential for determining the context in which the plays were written.
2. Develop a clear, focused thesis. Whether you write on one of the assigned paper topics or devise a topic of your own, you should dedicate a significant amount of time to developing an effective thesis. A paper will often stand or fall based on the quality of its thesis, and a focused thesis is almost always better than a general one. An effective way to create a focused thesis is by taking a general feature of a play and asking the question: "Why?" For example, say you are writing a paper on Hamlet and you recognize that Hamlet does not know whether he can trust the ghost of his father. You should then ask yourself. "Why doesn't Hamlet know whether he can trust the ghost?" You might conclude that it is because Hamlet does not know whether the ghost is really his father's spirit or a demon sent to corrupt him. Then continue to focus your thoughts with "why?" questions: "Why would Hamlet trust the ghost if it really was his father?" . . . because he wants to be like his father. "Why does he want to be like his father?" . . . because his father was a good king. "Why was his father a good king?" . . . because his father was a man of action. "Why would Hamlet fear that the ghost is actually a demon?" . . . because he fears for his soul. "Why does he fear for his souI?" . . . because Hamlet is a devout Christian. Now, by asking "why?" questions, you have come to a deeper understanding of the text. The fact that he does not know whether to trust the ghost reflects Hamlet's inner conflict between his need to be a man of action (and take revenge) and his need to be a Christian (and turn the other cheek). Thus, you have gone from a general thesis: "Hamlet does not know whether he can trust the ghost," to a focused thesis: "Shakespeare uses Hamlet's struggle over whether to trust the ghost to reflect Hamlet's inner struggle between his need to be a man of action and his need to be a man of Christ." Subsequently, with further thought, you could arrive at an even more advanced thesis like: "In Hamlet Shakespeare uses the conflict between the code of revenge and the code of Christianity to disrupt the standard formula of revenge-tragedies by showing that a revengeseeker need not necessarily be damned." 3. Use the body of your essay to support your thesis directly. The body of your essay exists for the sole purpose of supporting the thesis set forth in your first paragraph. Although you my think it boring to write papers this way, teachers will not find such papers boring to read, One effective way of keeping the body of the essay focused on the thesis is by using straightforward topic sentences at the beginning of each new paragraph. A topic sentence should sum up the paragraph that it begins, and each topic sentence should parallel a point in the reasoning that led to your thesis. For example, using the thesis derived above, one topic sentence might be: Hamlet's father was seen as a good king because he was a man of action. The paragraph that began with this topic sentence would then go on to give specific quotes that supported the claim. (One bad idea is to go through the play in chronological order, summarizing the play and citing passages as they occur; this kind of "organization" rarely provides effective support for your thesis.) When using a quote in the body of your essay, you should weave it in rather than let it stand alone. One way to do this is by first setting up the quotation, stating its speaker and context and generally explaining what it is about. This does not have to take more than a sentence. Then, after you have given the quotation itself, you should specifically explain its relevance to your argument. Finally, when quoting from texts written centuries ago, you should keep in mind that some of the words in those quotes may have had contemporary meanings that are far different from their modem ones. If you are at all in doubt about the meaning of a word in a particular context, I would strongly advise that you look it up in the Oxford English Dictionary. The OED will not only provide you with a list of definitions for a particular word, but will also tell you when each particular definition came into use. You can find the OED on line at http:// www.oed.com 4. Use the conclusion to take your argument one step further. Once you have put together a solid essay, your job in the conclusion is to propose the larger ramifications of what you have said. You can do so in a number of ways such as proposing how your argument reveals the assumptions underlying Shakespeare's culture, proposing how your argument can apply to Shakespeare's other works, or proposing how Shakespeare meant to influence his culture with the particular work you have been discussing. Keep in mind that the point of the conclusion is not necessarily to prove something new, but rather to suggest a probable ramification of your argument. Again, the cultural and historical information presented in the web site can be very useful when writing your conclusion.
Othello is introduced as a character whose companionate view of marriage has brought him paradisal bliss. In the following selection, Othello explains why he wants Desdemona to be allowed to travel to Cyprus with him: . . . I therefore beg it not My soul hath her content so absolute Othello's joy is sharply contrasted by the tormented Iago and his patriarchal view of marriage. In this passage, Iago describes his views on love: I never found a man that knew how to love himself. Ere I would say I would drown myself for the love of a guinea-hen, I would change my humanity with a baboon. . . . Our bodies are our gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners. . . . we have reason to cool our unbitted lusts: wherof I take this, that you call love, to be a sect or scion. (1.3.311-3,317-8,325-27)Reflected in Iago's characterization of women as "guinea-hen"s, or prostitutes, is the patriarchal view of women as sexual objects. Unlike Othello, Iago makes no attempt to deny this view. Iago's patriarchal view is further expressed in his characterization of love as a Iype of lust. Like Milton's Satan, Iago seems capable only of lust, not love. This is why Iago is unwilling to act in the name of love and particularly unwilling to sacrifice himself for it. Such a sacrifice is also prevented by the emphasis lago places on that which he calls "self-love." Again like Milton's Satan, Iago is defined mainly by his conviction of his own worth and by his belief in will to power. In another passage, Iago describes the inner torment that he feels: I do suspect the lusty Moor As lago begins to turn Othello toward the patriarchal view of marriage and its characteristic jealousy, Othello becomes increasingly fallen. In this selection Othello reacts to lago's testimony that Desdemona has been unfaithful: I am abused, and my relief I had been happy if the general camp, Lie with her? Lie on her? We say lie on her when they belie her. Lie with her! Zounds, that's fulsome! Handkerchief--confession--handkerchief! To confess and be hanged for this labour. First to be hanged and then to confess! I tremble at it. Noses, ears, and lips! Is't possible? Confess? Handkerchief! O devil! [He falls] (IV.1.35-43)The thought of his wife making love to another man causes the formerly eloquent Othello to now speak in broken, staccato sentences full of monosyllabic words. Reflected in the impossible statement, "First to be hanged/ and then to confess!" is Othello's irrationality and confusion. Inherent in the phrase "Noses, ears, and lips!" is a focus on the bodily and the physical rather than the spiritual. Othello's characterization of his wife as pieces of the body again reflects the patriarchal view of women as objects of physical pleasure. Assumed in the oath "O devil!" is Othello's fallen state and also the fact that Iago has brought it about. While this curse is not thrown directly at Iago, it does serve to reaffirm his position as a Satanic corrupter. Finally, Othello's literal, physical fall at the end of this quotation parallels his mental and spiritual decline. In the final scene of the play, Shakespeare makes the register of the fall most explicit. In this selection, lago's complicity in Othello's murder of Desdemona has been revealed: LODOVICO:Where is that viper? Bring the villain forth.
The Introduction: A good introduction should 1) outline the argument of the paper and 2) clearly state the thesis. Let's look at how the above paper fulfills these conditions. 1) First, let's look at how the introduction outlines the argument that will be presented in the body of the paper: First, Shakespeare introduces Othello as a strong, eloquent figure living in the paradisal bliss of a companionate marriage. Second, Shakespeare portrays lago as a tormented, vengeful specimen of patriarchal marriage. Third, Shakespeare demonstrates that Othello becomes increasingly fallen as he is influenced by Iago's patriarchal views. Finally, Shakespeare explicitly characterizes Iago as a serpent who has brought about the fall of Othello.These sentences clearly express how the argument will progress, step by step, throughout the paper. The reader is now able to tell that there will be four sections, and he has an idea of what each section will seek to demonstrate. Now the reader knows what to expect from the body of the paper. 2) Now, let's look at the thesis. The thesis should be clear and concise, and it is usually placed as the first or last sentence of the introduction. In the example, the thesis is placed at the end of the introduction: In Othello Shakespeare uses the register of the Fall to express the destructiveness of the patriarchal view of marriage. [register = language and imagery]This thesis clearly follows from the previously mentioned line of argument. It is particularly effective in that it not only points out a pattern in the text (i.e., Shakespeare uses the register of the Fall) but also describes why that pattern is present (i.e. to express the destructiveness of the patriarchal view of marriage). A good thesis should point out both what is and why it is. The Body: Two important features of the example are 1) its use of topic sentences at the beginning of each paragraph and 2) its pattern of textual analysis. 1) Each paragraph of the body of the paper begins with a topic sentence. Each topic sentence provides a summary of the paragraph it begins. Here is a list of the four topic sentences: Othello is introduced as a character whose companionate view of marriage has brought him paradisal bliss.Now compare this list of topic sentences to the outline sentences from the introduction (quoted above). You will notice that they parallel each other. The outline sentences set up the argument, and the topic sentences cue the reader as to which part of that argument will be discussed in each paragraph. Topic sentences can help you to recognize if you are accurately following the argument laid out in your opening. Your topic sentences should parallel the reasoning in your opening, and if they do not, this indicates a possible structural flaw in your paper. If you find that one of your topic sentences is an accurate summary of the paragraph it begins, but does not fit into the argument from the opening, then you must either alter the paragraph to fit your argument, omit the paragraph from the paper, or restructure your original argument to reflect this new piece of data. 2) All the quotations in the body of the paper are analyzed according to a particular pattern. First, the quotation is set up. Second, the quotation is given. Third, the quotation is analyzed. For example:
The Conclusion: The conclusion briefly restates the thesis in a slightly different way:
Thanks to Josh Morgenstein, who drafted most of this "Advice for Paper Writers."
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