READING AND WRITING GUIDES

READING AND WRITING GUIDES

HOW TO READ A SHAKESPEAREAN PLAY

Many people are intimidated by the prospect of reading a Shakespearean play, both because of their limited experience at reading plays and because of their lack of familiarity with Shakespeare's language, which some call old English but which is more accurately described as early modern English.

The results of a recent study of thirty good student readers of the plays may help you develop some effective reading strategies of your own:

1) When reading a Shakespearean play, good readers tend to read very slowly, taking the time to identify both major and minor characters and to check the notes whenever they don't understand a word or a reference;

2) Rather than reading a play simply to fulfill an assignment, good readers think of a stance toward their reading that leads them to be particularly attentive and purposeful. If they are students, they may imagine that they are going to participate in a discussion, write a paper, or make a presentation on some aspect of the play; if they are teachers, they read the play as if they were going to teach it. The result of their purposeful stance is that they read the play very closely, looking for those important moments and patterns that contribute to the play's meaning and significance.

3) While reading, good readers are engaged in the action and dialogue of a play at one moment, and are thoughtfully detached at the next, reflecting on language, character, action, and theme--asking themselves, for example, what a particular speech means, why the character said it, how he or she looked while speaking, how others might be reacting, etc. And while thinking about particular moments in the play, they are also looking for those repeated words and images that might suggest the larger themes and meanings of the play.

4) We make sense out of our reading by applying mental frameworks to the text, frameworks that help us understand what words mean, how they are arranged into sentences, etc. Higher level mental frameworks tell us what to look for, what to expect, as we read a text. If we were reading a murder mystery, for example, they might lead us to look for certain kinds of clues and to suspect certain kinds of characters of committing the crime.

Good readers bring a broad array of mental frameworks to their reading: Literary frameworks help them identify the play's major issue or problem, trace its important moments, heed the words of significant characters, or identify significant language pattterns or shifts. Frameworks drawn from other plays help them understand significant characters and actions, while ideas from their own lives guide them to significant moments and themes in their reading.

5) Especially when they are deeply involved in their reading, good readers can often hear character's voices or see how they act or are dressed. A few theatrically-trained readers can picture parts of the play as it might be staged, while others see its actions as if they were watching a film or looking through a window.

HOW TO WRITE A SUCCESSFUL CRITICAL PAPER

According to many philosophers and social scientists, we human beings hunger and thirst for meaning in our lives. We search for this meaning in everything we do, whether it's getting an education, choosing a mate, or pursuing a career. The Viennese psychologist Victor Frankl says that meaning is so essential to us that we cannot survive without it. During the period that he spent in Nazi concentration camps during World War II, for instance, Frankl found that those prisoners who had found some sort of meaning, something to look forward to, whether that something was a wife, a child, or a belief in God, survived the brutalities of the camps while others did not.

The papers you will write in this course will ask you to determine some of the possible meanings of the plays that you read and watch. Such papers are often called critical or interpretative papers. They are often evaluated as follows:

Highly successful: These papers are characterized by a novel central idea, clear organization, adequate and gracefully integrated evidence, natural voice, precise diction, and correct grammar, punctuation, and mechanics;

Successful: While these papers don't display particularly original thought, their central idea is clearly articulated; their overall organization, though it may break down somewhere in the paper, is clear; their development is adequate though not necessarily integrated gracefully into the discussion; their voice is clear and typically natural, through their diction may be imprecise; and they contain some flaws in grammar, punctuation, and mechanics;

Less Than Successful: These papers typically don't have a clearly articulated central idea; thus their overall organization is either unclear or breaks down quickly; their development is inadequate and/or mechanically presented; their sentences are awkward and their diction imprecise; and they contain serious mistakes in grammar and punctuation.

This summary of a recent survey of writers of interpretative papers in VCU's Shakespeare classes may help you plan and write your own papers. Here are the results of the survey:

1) Highly successful writers spend more time developing their ideas and formulating the central direction of their papers of their papers than do their less successful counterparts:

Time: For example, twelve out of the fourteen highly successful writers surveyed allow for a pronounced, and usually lengthy, gestation period for their ideas to develop. One writer starts thinking "from the moment the paper is assigned," another starts "a week before the paper is due," another begins "jotting down ideas and brainstorming or reading up on the work(s) being analyzed a couple of weeks ahead." And when it is not so lengthy, this exploratory period is at least highly intense: One student says that he usually thinks about "what my thesis is going to be for a day," while another gives herself "one full day for brainstorming and list-making."

These highly successful writers do go about developing their ideas in different ways. Three, for example, mention working on the paper subconsciously; one says, "I start to think about the writing I will have to do for a class the minute I become aware of the assignment. . . . When I know I have a paper to do, I feel subconsciously I am working on it from that point on." Another begins his paper by brainstorming for a "comfortable three or four days," while another uses free writing as a way of thinking: "I write to think," he says; "Writing is a part of my thinking process."

Directionality: From the moment they begin thinking about a paper, highly successful writers are searching for a sense of direction (usually called a thesis) to guide their writing. One speaks of generating her thesis from class discussion, another of the process of "sifting through rough theses," another of thinking about "what my thesis is going to be for a day," and still another of "going through the texts I plan to use, with an eye toward the possible thesis." Even when they use a term such as "approach," "general direction," or "key" rather than "thesis," it is obvious that highly successful writers are searching for a direction for their paper from almost the first moment they think about it. Here, one writer demonstrates the extent to which a sense of direction permeates his work:

Once I have what I call the "key" to the text, the point at which I see a connection between the text and an idea I care about, I begin to think more narrowly about the specifics of the paper. There is no order to this thinking. I may ponder a title at dinner, think of possible opening thoughts right before sleep, or think of the end first while driving to work. I seldom think in formal terms of thesis statement, exposition, etc. When I finally sit down to write, I do just that. I write furiously, without regard to spelling, structure, complete thoughts, or anything else. I try to get on paper as much of the free flow of ideas that I experience when I'm thinking of the paper.

2) In their planning, highly successful writers explore various thesis options for their papers, not settling on one until they are confident that it is unique and exciting:

Exploration: When asked how they go about formulating the thesis for their papers, highly successful writers demonstrate just how tentative and exploratory the whole process was. They speak of developing a "working thesis," a set of "rough theses," or a "tentative thesis"; and they describe themselves as continually revising their thesis as they write, in terms like these: "I often modify my thesis," "I end up going back and rewriting my thesis," "I rarely end up with the exact thesis I start with," "I begin my paper by identifying several possible theses." Actually, these writers are doing more than simply revising or modifying their thesis during their exploratory period; they are also working out the structure or the argument of the paper. They continually associate the process of finding a thesis with outlining, planning, or organizing the paper, in statements like these: "Once I have a working thesis written down I start outlining;" "If I keep the same thesis, I work my quotations into an outline. . . ."

And the tentative terms these writers use to describe their plan, as a "rough outline" (three), "rough sketch of points," "rough structure," suggest that they are actively thinking through the structure of the paper.

Novelty and Commitment: While merely successful writers are willing to settle for ideas that are clear to their readers, highly successful writers are more ambitious, for they hope to find an idea that is original or unique. One, for example, aims to challenge the whole interpretative tradition of her text: "I hope to achieve in my paper a unique viewpoint or line of thought on the text," she says, "I do not want to merely repeat what others have already seen and said." Another aims to "choose something that was not discussed in class" or "that is in direct opposition to the professor's opinion," while another says: "If the idea seems to be working out rather neatly, I abandon it. The whole class is probably going to do the same thing. I try to find a less obvious idea."

Highly successful writers typically describe their search for an original idea as a deeply personal, even passionate one. Rather than simply trying to impress someone else, they are searching for something that will teach or move them. "My goal in writing any paper is to discover something about the text that I didn't find during my initial readings or in class discussion," says one, "I think of the entire process as a kind of 'detective game.'" "As I complete the paper, I hope that I have not only supported my thesis, but learned something new about the text," says another. Two others are even more explicit about their own personal involvement in the project: "I call this a research paper," says one, "because everything I write, even some poetry, requires thought & searching. I search within myself." Another uses interpretative analysis of the text "to find how the text becomes alive and a new part of my life."

MODEL PAPERS

Here are two model interpretative papers. Study them carefully in order to find out what a highly successful paper looks and feels like.

Outline:

Intro: Quote from the play Macbeth's wish that the assassination itself could catch up the consequences of the act;

Thesis: Duncan's murder has disruptive and destructive consequences, both on the natural world and on the Lord and Lady Macbeth.

1) Duncan's murder disrupts nature--night is unruly, chimney's are blown down, creatures eat each other;

2) The murder also causes the deterioration of Lord and Lady Macbeth

*Lady Macbeth disintegrates mentally and physically;

*Macbeth's deterioration is a moral one--he murders Banquo, Macduff's family, and tyrannizes his people;

Concl: After Macbeth's death, goodness seems to prevail, but how long can the force of good prevail against the dark powers represented by the witches?

Disorder in Macbeth:

(Introduces paper with an example that suggests its thesis.)Just a little before proceeding to Duncan's bed chamber to murder his kinsman, king, and guest, Macbeth tries to wish away the consequences of his action: "If th'asssassination/ Could trammel up the consequence . . . that this blow/ Might be th be-all and the end-all," he says to himself. (Transition to first point.) Unfortunately for Macbeth, rather than harnessing consequences, his deed does just the opposite; it unleashes them.

(First point of the paper.) Most immediately, the effects of the murder are felt in the very structure of nature itself. (Examples to develop this point.) Reflecting the Elizabethan notion that unnatural deeds will disrupt nature's course, Lennox remarks that the "night has been unruly," "chimneys were blown down," and "lamentings [have been] heard i'th'air" (2.3.54-6). And just a little later, an old man comments that the kingdom has grown so topsy-turvy that a mousing owl killed a falcon and Duncan's horses were seen eating each other. Truly it seems, "Night's black agents" (3.2.53) have been released upon the world.

(First part of second point of paper.) But more potent than the darkness felt on the outside is the darkness found on the inside in this play, for both Lord and Lady Macbeth deteriorate as a result of their deed. (Qualification of this point.) Of course, at first, it seems that Lady Macbeth, who has guided the two so unswervingly toward the deed, is impervious to its effects. (Examples to support this qualification.) She is able, for example, to return to the murdered King's bedchamber to plant the murder weapons on his grooms and then to smear them with blood. And she retains enough presence of mind to remind her husband to retire to their chamber when she hears the knocking at the castle gate. "A little water," she says almost offhandedly, "clears us of this deed" (2.2.66).

(More specific statement of second point.) But before the play is over, the Lady is driven by her bad conscience to take her own life. (Examples of Lady Macbeth's deterioration.) "Our desire is got without content" (3.2.5), she comments to her husband even before the coronation banquet. Later, she is seen sleepwalking, trying to wash Duncan's blood from her hands: "All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand" (5.1.46-7) she says to her doctor. Not long after, her death is reported to Macbeth.

(Second part of second point.) Macbeth's deterioration is at first more rapid and more obvious than that of his wife. (Examples to support.) Looking at his bloody hands right after the murder, he complains to her of the "sorry sight" (2.2.20), wonders why he could not pronounce "Amen," and remembers the ghostly voice he had heard calling: "Macbeth shall sleep no more!" (2.2.42)

(Important distinction about the second part of this point.) But then Macbeth's degeneration takes a different turn from his wife's, for rather than breaking down physically and mentally as she does, he decays morally. (Examples to develop this point.) First, he rids himself of the scorpions in his mind by having Banquo murdered and then, to avenge himself on Macduff for having fled to England, commits the even more horrible act of ordering that warrior's wife and children be murdered. Before long, death and destruction have spread throughout Scotland; as Macduff puts it, even before hearing of the loss of his family, "Each new morn,/ New widows howl, new orphans cry" (4.3.4-5) Finally, it seems that Macbeth has emptied himself of any moral sense. Truly, his life has become "a tale/ Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,/ Signifying nothing" (5.5.26-8), for he has emptied himself of all feeling and his life of all its meaning.

(Conclusion that suggests further application of thesis.) At the end of the play, holding the dead Macbeth's head high, Macduff hails Duncan's son Malcolm as the next King of Scotland. That worthy promises in turn to perform his duties by the "grace of Grace," a phrase interpreted by one editor to mean by the "grace of Goodness." And yet one worries even at this happy moment about how long the force of goodness will prevail in Scotland, a land in which the Witches, perhaps the real forces of darkness in the play, await their next victim.

Outline:

Intro: State general topic and offer example.

Thesis: Relationships between males and females in MND are tense and conflictive ones, primarily because the males try to dominate and control the females in the play; this tension is resolved superficially, but never actually in the play,

1) Egeus, Hermia's father, attempts to control her choice of a mate, demanding that she marry his choice Demetrius;

2) Oberon tries to control his mate Titania by demanding possession of her changeling babe;

3) These tensions are never really resolved in the play;

Concl: Perhaps these tensions between the sexes might have arisen in Elizabethan culture because males were anxious about the potential capabilities of females.

Men and Women in MND

[Paper begins by stating its general topic.] Tension between men and women dominates the plot of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. [Continues by offering an example of the conflict.] Shakespeare introduces conflict between the sexes in the opening scene when the Duke of Athens, Theseus, proclaims, "Hippolyta, I wooed thee with my sword,/ And won thy love, doing thee injuries . . ." (1.2.16-17). Hippolyta's response to her captor's assertion of masculine dominance is bitter and angry, as one film actress conveyed in her portrayal of the queen. Hippolyta's response, resulting from her captivity and forced marriage, thus establishes a foundation for a theme of conflict between the sexes in the play. [Introduction ends with statement of the first part of the paper's thesis.] In presenting the progression of conflicting relationships to superficial resolutions, Shakespeare conveys an underlying theme of possession and control, revealing much about Elizabethan society.

[First paragraph begins with a topic sentence that will develop the first aspect of the thesis.] Egeus confronts direct opposition when his daughter Hermia refuses to obey him. [Continues now with an example that will develop the topic sentence.] He adamantly demands that she marry Demetrius, not Lysander, whom she loves. His desire to control Hermia is apparent when he proclaims: "As she is mine, I may dispose of her,/ Which shall be either to this gentleman or to her death . . . (1.1.42-43). Theseus concurs and counsels Hermia: "To you your father should be as a god, One that composed your beauties" (1.1.47-48). Hermia refuses to submit to the will of her father and ruler, although she faces execution or a solitary life in a convent. [Paper now advances a new aspect of the thesis, i.e, that conflict remains unresolved.] This particular instance of tension between father and daughter is temporarily resolved when Theseus declares the unions acceptable. However, the underlying causes of the conflict remain unresolved, as even upon this miraculous solution, Egeus persists in his wishes to assert his power. He complains to Demetrius, "Thereby you have defeated you and me,/ You of your wife and me of my consent,/ of my consent that she should be your wife" (4.1.160-164). It is apparent that Egeus seeks not the happiness of his daughter, but rather self-fulfillment through assertion of his will over her.

Not all is peaceful in the world of the fairies either. [This paragraph begins with a new topic sentence that develops the second aspect of the thesis.] Angered by Queen Titania's refusal to relinquish to him a young child in her possession, King Oberon is also challenged by a rebellious woman. [Now paper offers an extended example of this topic sentence.] Oberon resolves this tension by resorting to magic, distracting Titania by rendering her madly in love with an ass. Thus preoccupied, Titania is unaware that Oberon has acquired the young boy. Titania is aware, however, that Oberon's actions are "forgeries of jealousy" (2.1.81), and yet she does not once inquire about the boy when she returns to her original state. Oberon, undoubtedly, does not require any service of this boy, but he does have an intense need to answer for himself the question he poses to Titania, "Am I not thy lord?" (2.1.63). In stealing Titania's possession, Oberon successfully asserts his power and masculinity over a disobedient Titania. Once again, a particular issue is resolved, but the real causes of the conflict remain unaddressed.

[This paragraph now recaps the second half of the thesis, i.e., that the conflicts are never really resolved.] By the close of the play, the tension which dominated the three plot strands in the play is superficially eliminated. But although the immediate problems are resolved, tensions and domination by males still exist. While Hermia demonstrates bravery in her rebellion and achieves her goal of marrying Lysander, she does so primarily as a result of intervention by fairies and approval from her ruler. Titania loses the child she vowed to retain. In sum, although they rebel against their male counterparts, these women are not able to assert their wills. Thus does Shakespeare convey a theme of battling wills between the sexes, concluding with the defeat of the females in the play.

[This conclusion applies the paper's thesis to Elizabethan culture.] Through his plot and character development, Shakespeare reveals the nature of relations between men and women in Elizabethan society. This age was, of course, a time when male domination was the norm among most social institutions, a practice that is rather ironic considering that England's female monarch, for whom the period was named, was a respected and successful leader. This patriarchal society was perhaps not so much based on a sense of male superiority as on apprehension regarding women's potential capabilities. Shakespeare demonstrates this vulnerability through his characterizations of Theseus, Egeus, and Oberon. They all obsessively desire to dominate, as is evident in their dramatic worlds and actions. Although Hippolyta, Hermia, and Titan are content at the end of the play, they have clearly been manipulated and defeated by men and fate.