ENGLISH 241: MIDSEMESTER EXAM AND ANSWERS
I) (10 Points) Short Answer: Answer 5 of the following questions as concisely as you can:
1) Define the term "subtext" and illustrate your definition from one of these moments from MND: (1) When Hippolyta responds to Theseus' impatience over how slowly their wedding day is approaching; (2) When Hermia and Lysander get lost in the wood and lie down to sleep for the night;
The feelings or thoughts expressed by a character's words. In situation (1) Hippolyta could either be feeling very hostile toward Theseus and dreading their marriage or she could be as eager as he; and in (2) Lysander wants to make to love to Hermia, but she seems unwilling.
2) In MND, what are Oberon and Titania arguing about, and how does Titania describe the effects of the argument on the earth?
They are arguing over who should possess a child born of one Of Titania's priestesses. According to Titania, their argument has brought on cold, wet weather that has caused floods, drowned fields, rotting crops, dead cows, etc.
3) What is the dominant image pattern in Romeo and Juliet, and what is the significance of this pattern?
The dominant image pattern is light versus darkness; this pattern suggests the deep contrast in the play between the day world of violence and the night world of Romeo and Juliet's love.
4) What is "structural counterpoint" or plot juxtaposition in a play, and what is one example of it from Romeo and Juliet or Henry IV, Part 1.
Plot juxtaposition or structural counterpoint is contrast in events or actions. For example, in R&J, just after they are married, their marriage is essentially destroyed when Romeo fights and kills Tybalt; or just as Romeo is falling in love with Juliet, Tybalt is glaring at him and vowing revenge. In Henry IV, #1, we move from the political events discussed in the first scene in the King's court to the concerns of the tavern.
5) What was the Elizabethan notion of hierarchy and why was this idea so important to them?
The Elizabethan notion of hierarchy was an idea of order, i.e., everything had its fixed place in the natural order (also called the chain of being). Hierarchy was likely so important to Elizabethans because it represented stability in a rapidly changing world.
6) The first page of Shakespeare Alive suggests that life in Elizabethan England was full of contradictions. These contradictions had to do with women, a highly-educated elite, government investment in voyages and wars, and riches. What were two of these contradictions?
A woman rules the nation while within the family men still rule women, a highly educated elite enjoys the fruits of literature while many people can't even read, the government invests huge sums of money in voyages and exploration while science and medicine remain in an appallingly primitive state,and rich young men wander around Europe for fun, while in England, thousands of homeless people wander from parish to parish, begging and stealing to survive.
(15 Points) Quotations: Respond to 5 of the following quotations by identifying the speaker and situation. Then explain how the quote helps us understand something important about the play in which it appears, e.g., its themes, characters, structure, etc. Don't just summarize the quote; rather, explain its significance; i.e., what it suggests about the meanings of the play.
1) Helen, to you our minds we will unfold:
Tomorrow night, when Phoebe doth behold
Her silver visage in the wat'ry glass,
Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass
(A time that lovers' flights doth still conceal).
Through Athens' gates have we devis'd to steal.
The first time Helena approaches them, Lysander tells her about his and Hermia's plans to elope through the wood to his aunt's house, Lysander alludes to the two major repeated images of the play, moonlight and water, images that create the shimmering, changeable atmosphere that shapes the play.
2) Things base and vile, holding no quantity,
Love can transpose to form and dignity:
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
Just after Lysander and Hermia leave her alone, Helena comments that love can transform something ugly into something dignified is one illustration of the important idea in the play that the human mind or imagination can transform feelings, e.g., Lysander and Demetrius's love for Helena, and perhaps even creatures, e.g., Bottom's asses' head.
3) This is the matter. Nurse, give leave awhile,
We must talk in secret. Nurse, come back again,
I have remember'd me, thou's hear our counsel.
Calling the Nurse back in order to broach the subject of marriage the first time we meet her and Juliet, Lady Capulet reveals just how uncomfortable she is with Juliet; another indication of the emotional distance between the two.
4) Tis but thy name that is my enemy:
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague
What's Montague? It is nor hand nor foot
Nor arm nor face nor any other part
Belonging to a man.
During the garden scene, Juliet wishes (to herself) that Romeo's name be changed illustrates her lack of realism, since changing his name will hardly change the hostilities between their families.
5) I know you all, and will awhile uphold
The unyok'd humour of your idleness.
Yet herein will I imitate the sun,
Who doth permit the base contagious clouds
To smother up his beauty from the world,
That, when he please again to be himself,
Being wanted, he may be more wond'red at
By breaking through the foul and ugly mists
Of vapors that did seem to strangle him. . . .
After being left alone by his tavern cronies, Prince Hal reveals that he will use his
association with them later just to
make himself look better when he seems to reform. Is the Princejust a cold, detached user
of people who thought he was theirfriend?
6) Well, 'tis no matter, honour pricks me on. Yea, but how
if honour prick me off when I come on, how then? Can honour
set to a leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the grief
of a wound? No. Honour hath no skill in surgery then?
No. What is honour? A word. What is in that word honour?
What is that honour? Air.
Just before the final battle between the King and the rebels, Falstaff's reflection on the nature of honor--to him it'sjust an empty word--contrasts him with Hotspur, whose whole life focuses on the ideal of honor.
Question:
Often in his plays, Shakespeare will set in contrast two different worlds of experience, two different ways of living. Sometimes these worlds are located in different places and sometimes they are connected more to certain characters. But whether these worlds exist in different places or in different characters, they always represent different ideas about how to live.
Choose two of the three plays we have studied in class, and for each: Contrast the two worlds in each one, explaining with examples and details what each expresses about what is important in life, and speculate on whether Shakespeare or the play seems to prefer one world in each play over the other.
Answer:
In MND, the world of Athens is contrasted with the world of the wood. In the constrained world of Athens, one survives by submitting to male authority, as do both Hippolyta and Hermia. In the dark, free, magical world of the wood, though, one is free, free to argue with males, to shift lovers, and to fall in love with something as ludicrous as an ass.
In R&J, the night world of the lovers is contrasted with the violent day world of Verona. Hidden away in their own light which they create through their language in the night, Romeo and Juliet are free to talk of love, to marry, and to make love. But their love is continually threatened by the violent day world of Verona, by Tybalt's desire to fight Romeo and Romeo's need to regain his honor once his friend Mercutio is killed by Tybalt.
In Henry IV:1, the world of the King and his nobles (including the Percy family), with its love of honor, military valor, duty, and responsbility, is contrasted with the carefree world of the tavern, where the Prince at least seems to live irresponsibility, drinking and even robbing with Falstaff and his cronies.
In MND and R&J, Shakespeare creates two different worlds within each play to represent different viewpoints, different values and ways of living. In MND, the contrast is between the organized, lawful Athenian society and the magical, mystical, fairy-land forest. In R&J, the world of family feuds & murder opposes the innocent love-struck world of the two lovers.
The organized Athenian society in MND represents strict obedience in a male dominated world. Hippolyta must marry the duke because she was won in battle, with no concern about her feelings. The mortal Athenian world is about rules and laws governing the way one behaves and lives.
Contrasting with this world is the free-spirited magical world of the forest where fairies play games with each other and human emotions. Here, there are no rules except that the best player wins, and reality can be altered with dew off of a flower and the weaving of a spell. Titania does not have to obey Oberon's wishes and release the changeling boy, and only does when she is tricked by Oberon's magical spell. In the forest, lovers change partners and a fairy queen falls in love with a stupid laborer wearing an ass's head, which is rather symbolic of his personality. The only laws that are followed are those set by spells & magic, and fairies are carefree, fun loving and mischievous. In this world you live to frolic, have fun, and kind of be a part of nature, which includes the freedom to express your own nature.
Shakespeare also contrasts two opposite worlds in R&J, the first of which is the blood-thirsty, vengeful, and violent world represented by Tybalt and by the feuding families. In this world, revenge and violence is a way of life, as illustrated by two families feuding over a long forgotten argument, wreaking havoc in the streets of Verona for no reason but a stupid tradition of hatred. Someone in the Capulet family and someone in the Montague family had a problem with each other years ago, and as a result young men like Tybalt are raised to kill and be killed for no good reason. This is a world of hatred, violence, murder, and blood-thirstiness where you live by familial loyalty with a weapon always ready at your side.
There is however a different way of living life, as is shown by Romeo and Juliet. Their way of living is ignoring what they were raised to feel and think and living in harmony despite their last names. Juliet says, "What's in a name? A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet...," suggesting in her youth, that a name and a tradition of fighting means nothing. Theirs is a world of young love and happiness, and harmony. They live by the love that they feel and not the hatred that they are taught. When Romeo spends the night with Juliet, they are in their own world of love and bliss until morning comes and they realize that he will be killed if he is discovered. Theirs is the world of that night, in contrast to the world of that morning.