Paper Topics: Paper 3 English 336

Due: First version in class on Nov. 28

Instructions: The paper should be about 5 pages. Refer to "paper standards" on your syllabus for more information about the format of the paper.

Choose one topic. If a topic has a number of questions, you need not answer them all; they are there just to help you think about the problem. Try instead to formulate a central thesis, one that will focus your response to the topic. (Do not restate questions in the form of a statement; the result will be too broad for a thesis!) Your paper should prove and elaborate on your thesis. In doing so, the paper should quote specific examples from the text to support its arguments and it should read those examples as closely as possible. Try to make the writing clear and concise.

1) The word "nature," related words like "unnatural," and images of nature (for example, the storm in act 3) are evoked repeatedly in King Lear, with many different meanings. Consider some of these meanings and what issues the differences among them raise. Make sure that your thesis suggests the significance of the variations, rather than providing only a list of these variations.

2) Is Lear regarded in King Lear as a king, an individual person or both? When is he seen as either? By whom? What's the significance of these different ways of regarding Lear?

3) George Puttnham in his Arte of English Poesie (1589) argues that the function of tragedies is to warn monarchs against becoming tyrants. Thomas Nashe, on the other hand, argues in his Pierce Penillesse (1592) that the function of tragedies is to show rebellious subjects the punishment for their misdeeds. These are opposing claims, since the first emphasizes the rights of the ruled against the ruler, and the second the rights of the ruler against the ruled. Where does King Lear fit in here? With the first claim, the second, both? And if both, is one given any priority?

4) Writing in his General Introduction to the Norton Shakespeare about the early modern English persecution of witches, Stephen Greenblatt suggests that "plays like Shakespeare's Macbeth .... seem to be less the allies of skepticism [about the existence and danger of witches] than the exploiters of fear" (29). Would a close reading of Macbeth bear out Greenblatt's assertion? Are there moments of skepticism about witchcraft in Macbeth as well as belief? Does the play vary in its response? What is the significance of the perspectives the play takes on the matter? (Note, while some of the witch scenes may be by another author, for the purposes of this question you can disregard the issues of authorship, since at stake is the perspective of the play, not of Shakespeare.)

5) We've talked about images of women and femininity in Shakespeare's tragedies. What about of masculinity? Consider this question through a reading of Macbeth. What are the ideas of manhood offered by the play, and how does the play seem to evaluate them? Note: You could also answer this question by writing about King Lear (but don't write about both plays in one paper).

6) Macbeth is a play obsessed with time (and timing?), from frequent references to the speed at which something gets done ("if it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well / It were done quickly [1.7.1-2]), to the vision of the succession of Banquo's line "to th' crack of doom" (4.1.133) to Macbeth's "tomorrow and tomorrow" speech (5.5.16-27), to give a few examples. What do you make of this interest in the play?