Longer Essay
Longer Essay:Due Friday 6 June by 6 pm
2500 words
Write an essay of 2500 words (+/-10%),following your submitted Essay Plan,on ONE of the topics below(word count includes footnotes and Bibliography).Your essay must be a comparative interwoven discussion.We strongly advise you NOT to try to write it at the last minute,but to prepare carefully and draft it several times.Start on it early and work on it steadily towards the deadline.
Follow your marked Essay Plan,unless your argument changes or you see a better way(N.B.you will not be penalised if you do not follow your plan,but a good plan will help you write a better essay).
Important note on duplication: In this assignment you may not write on the play that you analysed for your close reading assignment.You may write on Shakespeare's Anthony and Cleopatra.
Presentation of assignments
Assignments should be submitted on Canvas and must be typed in 12-point font with 1/spacing between lines(makes it easier for the marker to read).Each page should be numbered and carry your name on the top right-hand corner.We reserve the right to ask you also for a hardcopy if circumstances require.Marks will be deducted for poorly formatted work as well as for spelling and other technical errors of composition.Please check your work carefully,including using a spell and grammar checker.
Referencing
For this assignment,you are strongly encouraged,but not required,to work with secondary critical material on your topic(different topics will lend themselves to this in different ways).Works on the
Recommended Reading list in your Course Information document are good places to start as well as reading lists for individual plays under Modules.The library has a lovingly curated collection of
monographs and essay collections on Shakespearean drama on Floor 6,starting with 822.3.
Physically browsing the shelves may yield better fruit than going to JSTOR for the latest articles.
For guidance on citation style go to http://www.library.auckland.ac.nzlstudy-skills/referencin g
(http://www.library aucklandac.nz/study-skills/referencing) or consult the English Essay Writing Guide already distributed.Your assignment must include a bibliography.
Marking
Your essay will be marked on its clarity and concision of writing,coherence of argument,use of
evidence to support that argument,and presentation,including issues of formatting and intelligibility.
TOPICS
1.1."We are not greatly concerned with the characters as individuals...In Jacobean tragedy,it is
not primarily the conduct of the individual,but of the society which assails him [or her],that stands condemned."--J.W.Lever(1971)
How true do you think this view is?Discuss using examples drawn from at least three plays on the Course.
2.'A recent performance of Shakespeare's King Lear accidentally descended into pantomime after a fake eyeball hit an audience member in the face before landing in her ice cream.'--Daily
Telegraph,5 November 2016
Using examples from at least three plays on the course,write an essay about the use of grotesque, ridiculous and disgusting effects in tragedy.Does their use enhance,undermine,or have some other effect on the emotional dignity and power we usually associate with the genre?
3.'What we see in the tragic drama of the English Renaissance,with both male and female
protagonists,is an energetic and powerful resistance to oppression,suppression,silencing,and eradication'.
Use the above statement as your starting-point for a discussion of at least three prescribed plays.
4.It remains true that in their growing fascination with the human psyche,Elizabethan and
Jacobean dramatists characteristically wrote as though the self were a distinct entity that could be located at the hidden core of being.'
Discuss this account of the playwrights'interest in presenting“selfhood”with reference to three prescribed plays.
5.'By treating Renaissance drama as literature,we are inclined to forget its magnificent,shameless theatricality'.
Discuss the theatrical dimension of at least three plays on the course,making use(where
appropriate)of your knowledge of Elizabethan theatres and illustrating your answer by reference to any stage productions you may have seen.
6.'The action of revenge tragedy...involves a system of tormenting paradox.The dream of re-
membering the violated past and destroying a tainted order is fulfilled only at the cost of repeating the violation and spreading the taint.'(Michael Neill)
Discuss how the paradox Neilldescribes operates in three revenge tragedies on the course.
7.A topic of your own devising,treating at least three plays,presented to and approved by Dr Tomlinson and then submitted as an essay plan at the required time (i.e.if you want to do this option,you need to start thinking and planning and getting permission NOW).