2015 Fall 311 MIDTERM
DUE 10 AM, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3.
OPEN BOOK, DOUBLE SPACE. SHOW WORD-COUNT. HARD COPY ONLY.
NO LATE PAPERS ACCEPTED.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR PART ONE: Choose one quote to unpack. Write a 350-word essay. DOUBLE SPACE. Identify play and who is speaking; discuss the meaning of the quote in detail; and especially show how the quote reinforces thematic concerns of the play and intentions of the playwright.
HASON: I am giving him his future.
MEDEA: I am giving him his past.
HASON: You don’t need that in this country.
[Book page 78 in attached PDF. Highlighted quote]
Or:
CLEMENT VI: Eye to keyhole, Archbishop. Report to me of Flote’s activites. (He puts on jewels.) The center must glitter once more. We mark plague’s end with displays, tourneys, masquerades to celebrate the defeat of chaos and a return to normality, order and symmetry. … Now I summon back the great engines of authority,
Rack, stake, and gallows, palaces, courts and counting houses.
You strong leaders must leave your bed of worms,
You kings, high dukes, lords, judges and the rest
Adjust your gowns and crowns, sharpen your swords. …
And quick, else they learn to like another way.
The remedy of disorder is terror;
Go break the spine of the world.
The plague was a time of tearful innocence,
Now a greater darkness falls
For we return to normal.
[Book page 96 in attached PDF. Highlighted quote]
INSTRUCTIONS FOR PART TWO: choose a question from among the four below. Write a 500-word essay. Show word-count. DOUBLE SPACE.
Start with a thesis statement that reformulates the question; for example, “My essay argues that Y follows X.” Write complete sentences. Check and double check for spelling and grammar errors. Use paragraphs. Italicize the Titles of plays and books.
YOU MAY USE 3 VERY SHORT QUOTES from your two textbooks, or, from the plays we have read. Quotes must be placed within the body of the essay. NO LONG QUOTES ALLOWED.
1. Many scholars think Sophocles “substitutes” both the city of Thebes and King Oedipus for his own city of Athens and its leaders. Write an essay that explores the social and political motives for these substitutions made by Sophocles. [might be the easiest]
2. Write an essay that defines rasa theory and connects it to the fundamental purpose and process of Sanskrit Drama. Discuss how Drama served the community spiritually, politically and socially.
3. Write an essay that shows how the dialectic style of Greek theatre changed to the marketplace style of Roman Republic /Empiric Theatre. Go into detail about the reasons for what, when, and why these changes occurred, and support your claims with evidence. Define any terms you use; for example, define the terms “dialectic”, “marketplace.”
4. Noh Theatre has a complex history, rooted in the hybridity of religious belief in Japan, and tied to the political/economic turmoil within the ruling class. This historic complexity is expressed in the element of “doubleness” that is embedded in Noh plays and Noh performance. Write an essay that illuminates the many facets of “doubleness.” Include: a definition of the term “doubleness;” an analysis of Noh’s thematic concerns; stage structure; typical kinds of characters; and various conventions used to underscore thematic concerns.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR PART THREE: Write a 250-word obituary for Jocasta.