FIRST EXAM: RICHARD II, I AND II HENRY IV

On the exam you will be asked to identify four out of five important passages from the texts of the plays we have read: to name the play, the speaker, the subject, and the context, and, most importantly, explain the significance of the passage. For example, if this passage were to appear on the test:

"Honor pricks me on. Yea, but how if honor prick me off when I come on? How then? Can honor set a leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the grief of a wound? No. Honor hath no skill in surgery then? No. What is honor? A word. What is that word Honor? Air—a trim reckoning!"
An adequate answer might include: "Falstaff speaks in a soliloquy, late in I Henry IV, about honor, which he thinks is a mere word." An excellent answer would include: "Falstaff speaks, early in the fifth act of I Henry IV, on the eve of the battle with Hotspur, arguing that honor, an important theme in the play contested by Hotspur and especially by Hal, is to the fat knight an empty abstraction, a 'mere scutcheon,' meaningless to the body and insensible to the dead, and pointing towards the theme of a moral reckoning." The passages I ask you to identify will be taken from the focal passages on the syllabus; most, if not all, of them will have been discussed in class. The best way to prepare for the test is to reread the plays.

In addition you will be asked to identify four of five terms taken from the Theater and Histories sections of the web site. The web site is in effect the textbook that I have written to accompany the plays and provide what I thik you need to understand them. You should read it with the same care with which you read the plays. You will be held responsible for its content (only the main pages,not the linked ones) on the exams. (An old exam with sample answers is available here.)

Those of you whose last names begin with letters from A to E must submit a 1500 paper 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 must clear it with me by e-mail ahead of time. Please remember that you are responsible for the materials in the web site in writing your papers; many of the topics below cannot be adequately addressed without a careful consideration of those materials, and a good paper will cite them. The paper shall count for 40% of your grade. Your paper must develop a critical argument and demonstrate your mastery of Shakespeare's language by citing and analyzing passages from the plays; plot summary will not be accepted. (More detailed advice for paper-writers is available here). These topics are suggested:

  • Discuss the themes of honor and courtesy in I Henry IV, contrasting the views of honor expressed by Falstaff, Hotspur, Hal, and King Henry, how they differ, and how Hal's new virtue of courtesy develops as an alternative inthe play.
  • Discuss the theme of Justice in II Henry IV and its representations: the Lord Chief Justice, Justice Shallow, and Justice Silence.
  • I Henry IV is a play about redemption; II Henry IV, a play about justice. Discuss in one or both plays.
  • Compare Hal's deposition of Falstaff in Act II, Scene iv, of I Henry IV and his taking of the crown in II Henry IV, Act IV, Scene v.
  • "If Richard II reveals a mystical notion about the king's relationship to the realm, I Henry IV reveals a political one." Discuss, paying particular attention to Richard II's speeches in III.ii and Henry's speeches to Hal in I Henry IV, III.ii. Be sure to consult the section on Obedience and Resistance in the course web site.
  • Discuss the justifications for rebellion offered in the plays; you must consult the section on Obedience and Resistance in the course web site.
  • "When Thou Art King": discuss the views of what the realm will be like when Prince Hal is King that are held by Falstaff, Gadshill, Hotspur, Henry, and Hal himself.
  • Discuss the themes of reckoning and redemption in the two parts of Henry IV.
  • Discuss the conflicts between the king's two bodies—natural man and immortal crown—in the tragedy of Richard II. Be sure to consult the section on Obedience and Resistance in the course web site.
  • "Richard II contrives to assert the sacred inviolability of his office while simultaneously divesting himself of its symbols. Ultimately he violates the very sacredness of kingship, the divine right of kings, by deposing himself." Discuss, drawing on the web site for your discussion of the divine right of kings. Be careful not to confuse the king's divine right for his divinity (or lack of it).
  • Discuss the debunking of the ideal of chivalric honor from the appeal of treason in Richard II to the betrayal of the rebels at Gaultree in II Henry IV.

ENGLISH 205 STYLE SHEET

  • Number your pages. Double-space. Give your paper a title. Proofread.

  • Titles of plays should be underlined or italicized, not set in quotes or in bold type.

  • Passages of two lines or less of verse do not need to be indented. When included within the text, line breaks should be 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).

  • Passages of more than two lines of verse should be indented or block-quoted. When you indent or block-quote a longer 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.)

  • When citing a passage in a play, the act, scene, and line numbers should be set apart by periods. Either Roman numerals or Arabic numbers are fine for act and scene numbers, but if you use Roman numerals acts should be capitalized and scenes put in lower case. 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: "you have but slumb'red here / While these visions did appear" (V.i.424-426).

         Or like this:

    Puck then applies the play's title to the play itself, as he calls for the clemency of the actual audience:

    Think but this, and all is mended,
    That you have but slumb'red here
    While these visions did appear.
    And this weak and idle theme,
    No more yielding but a dream,
    Gentles, do not reprehend.
    If you pardon, we will mend. (5.1.424-430)

  • Put direct quotations in quotation marks, and cite all sources (including your lecture notes). 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. (I am the author of all of the essays in the web site exxcept for those ascribed to Shakespeare's contemporaries and indented in the text.) Supplying the URL is not sufficient. (Consult The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 6th Ed., if you are curious about the correct procedure for this or other matters of style.)