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Wow, This paper is gonna SUCK! Anyone here good with Shakespeare?

BigMike

BrokenbikeMike
Jul 29, 2003
8,931
0
Montgomery county MD
Here is my topic:

This course is called “Shakespeare: The Later Works”; to what degree is that label a useful one for examining the plays Shakespeare wrote after 1600 or thereabouts? Are there themes or ideas that run through enough of these plays to make “the late works” a meaningful category, or is it merely a convenient way to break Shakespeare’s works into a two-semester sequence? Even if this label is meaningful, is it the best way to categorize this group of plays? One could classify the late plays by genre (tragedy, “problem play,” romance/tragicomedy); are there perhaps other ways to group these plays, ways which would focus attention on themes or ideas that might otherwise receive too little emphasis? Address this question of the usefulness of the label “late works,” drawing evidence from at least six plays and six reputable critical sources.
Supposed to be 3500 words.

I have no idea what I am going to write on....:(
 

Ciaran

Fear my banana
Apr 5, 2004
9,839
15
So Cal
I really hope that this is not your first Shakespeare class.


Sadly I have no experience with The Bard. Sorry.
 

-dustin

boring
Jun 10, 2002
7,155
1
austin
i have read some Shakespear in my many
days. though, i do not believe i am in
a position to offer anything
that might help you. All i know is that Shakes
liked using 10 syllable lines in his
plays. That is, if he did write them. ha, ha.

oh, i also know Othello had a
big penis...according to my prof.
 

kinghami3

Future Turbo Monkey
Jun 1, 2004
2,239
0
Ballard 4 life.
BigMike said:
Here is my topic:



Supposed to be 3500 words.

I have no idea what I am going to write on....:(
I don't have a lot of experience with WS, but I would divide it into the comedies and tragedies and focus on the major themes in each, then focus on themes that run through both. I would also do a little research on the themes of the earlier plays and see how they compare.

I feel your pain though. I have a 10 page final in my Early and Medieval Christianity class due next Wednesday, and he hasn't even given us the topic yet! I foresee another allnighter...
 

Changleen

Paranoid Member
Jan 9, 2004
14,335
2,448
Hypernormality
Then you get all the fun of finding a decent job, working 9-5 every facking day and paying back student debt. Oh, and only having a handful of paid holiday days a year. Enjoy :D
 

BigMike

BrokenbikeMike
Jul 29, 2003
8,931
0
Montgomery county MD
Changleen said:
Then you get all the fun of finding a decent job, working 9-5 every facking day and paying back student debt. Oh, and only having a handful of paid holiday days a year. Enjoy :D

Not in my line of work I won't. There is no such thing as a 9-5 in theatre. I don't paln on going straight into theatre though..... I'm gonna get a BS job working at a bike shop and take a break for awile!

Oh, and....... no student debt!
 

Ciaran

Fear my banana
Apr 5, 2004
9,839
15
So Cal
BigMike said:
Why do you hope that? It is my first shakespeare class. First and only. I need it to graduate, and this is my final paper
Because Shakespeare isn't easy, even with a teacher. And your paper sounds like one better suited to someone who has at least a little experience with his works. How can one be expected to compare and contrast early and late works when one has only read them a couple of times?

Not that I am hoping that you fail or anything like that, I am just hoping that you have experience with The Bard s that your assignment is easier and you get a better grade.

BigMike said:
Not in my line of work I won't. There is no such thing as a 9-5 in theatre. I don't paln on going straight into theatre though..... I'm gonna get a BS job working at a bike shop and take a break for awile!

Oh, and....... no student debt!
I have a very good friend who has his bachelors in theatre and is one course away from his masters in theatre.

He works as a machinist. :D
 

SK6

Turbo Monkey
Jul 10, 2001
7,586
0
Shut up and ride...
BigMike said:
Here is my topic:



Supposed to be 3500 words.

I have no idea what I am going to write on....:(
When in doubt, Plagerize! :thumb: :p :D

Good luck bro, I have "Evidence" and "Communication and Conflict"…

Both six credit hours per…
 

sunny

Grammar Civil Patrol
Jul 2, 2004
1,107
0
Sandy Eggo, CA
BigMike said:
Here is my topic:

[insert course description of sorts here]

Supposed to be 3500 words.

I have no idea what I am going to write on....:(
Mike,

The prof gives you the theme. Either:
1. "Late Works" is an entirely appropriate title for a class dealing with Shakespeare's post-1600 works...
or
2. "Late Works" as a description for a class evaluating Shakespeare's post-1600 works is a great disservice both to the student and to the works themselves... blah blah blah.

Because...
1A. ...despite variations in plot and character, the latter works share common themes that mark the changing times of Elizabethan England... Authors often reflect the times in which they live, creating an inherent continuity in works written within a 10-year(??) span...
or
2A ...Despite certain reflections of the times, lending a continuity to Shakespeare's post-1600 works, the themselves are so vastly diverse and individual that presenting them as a sum total detracts from their uniqueness and dismisses certain key elements....

or some such other gibberish...

When is this due?
Do you have a list of all the plays (restricted to plays or open to all works?) pre and post-1600?

This is not as daunting a task as it may seem. First, assemble a list of the works chonologically. Then categorize the works as they are popularly categorized (comedy, tragedy, etc). Once you have this foundation, you can then focus on the questions your prof presents.

PM me if you need help.

-sunny
 

kinghami3

Future Turbo Monkey
Jun 1, 2004
2,239
0
Ballard 4 life.
skatetokil said:
i'm about half way through a 10 pager on american foreign policy. . . due in the morning.
The first half is always the easiest. Just wait till 4 AM when you realize you're the only one posting except the guy who just woke up. Hooples3 is usually the first to start posting, and after him they come pretty fast.
 

def

Monkey
Feb 12, 2003
520
0
knoxville, tn
BigMike said:
Not in my line of work I won't. There is no such thing as a 9-5 in theatre. I don't paln on going straight into theatre though..... I'm gonna get a BS job working at a bike shop and take a break for awile!

Oh, and....... no student debt!

Theatre! Reminds me of the stupidest class I took in college. I attended Mary Washington for a year while in the middle of my college experience. I needed to replace a cancelled class and the registration was old style wait in line. I signed up for "History of Music" as the sheet said, it was all that was left at the time I needed. I show and the class is really "History of Musicals". I needed the hours so I kept it. Hardest course I took there....it was so damn retarded I couldn't think straight!

I tried the shop job after college route. 2 years (4 total) at the shop after graduation and I just couldn't make enough. Now doing the 9-5 gig...at least its got benefits. Still searching for greener pastures.

But hell, good job w/ the no debt, that is my main regret w/ college. That and missing out on all the girls at UT, man there are tons down here!
 

BigMike

BrokenbikeMike
Jul 29, 2003
8,931
0
Montgomery county MD
Hey Sunny, Thanks!

And just to clear it up for everyone, I do technical theatre, we are the ones that work all night and then the performers come in on their contracted time and take us for granted :rolleyes:

Its a totally thankless Job, but I actually like it that way ;)
 

ito

Mr. Schwinn Effing Armstrong
Oct 3, 2003
1,709
0
Avoiding the nine to five
BigMike said:
Hey Sunny, Thanks!

And just to clear it up for everyone, I do technical theatre, we are the ones that work all night and then the performers come in on their contracted time and take us for granted :rolleyes:

Its a totally thankless Job, but I actually like it that way ;)
Actually, in my Shakespeare class last week we had a really cool student presentation on costume and set design, really interesting stuff. Made me realize how much I was missing in a lot of the plays I have watched.

Anyhow, which plays are you working/familiar with?

As Sunny said, the themes of the plays, especially the tragedies will be centering around the political changes of the time. One of the ideas that I am personally interested in is the shift from what was considered pagan religion to a Christian dominated society. With this shift is the idea of warrior societies dying out and leaders becoming more political and less physcial(ie. Claudius in Hamlet, or Malcolm vs. MacBeth). Loyalty to one's country is also an interesting theme to play with, look into how loyalty is viewed by certain characters in each play(though that might be a bit much for 3500 words).

Really though I agree with Sunny. Putting 6 works of Shakespeare into 3500 words is a difficult task. I just wrote a ten page paper on MacBeth and the theme I mentioned above and feel like I could have gone on for quite a while. I do not envy you in this task. However if you'd like some advice on the paper give me a pm, I'm familiar with most of the tragedies and a number of comedies(not so much the histories) and would be comfortable helping you out with weeding out a topic to cover them all.

The Ito

P.S. After re-reading the assignment I would argue that no it is not a helpful distinction. A better way of looking at the plays would be to examine a progression of one genre(tragedy, comedy, history) and see how the writing and characters mature and change. If you approached the plays historically this way would make much more sense. Of course that also leaves out the sonnets.
 

Transcend

My Nuts Are Flat
Apr 18, 2002
18,040
3
Towing the party line.
skatetokil said:
i'm about half way through a 10 pager on american foreign policy. . . due in the morning.
10 pages on us foreign policy - should take 3 hours max + 1hr for the endnotes, dear god I hate endnotes. Shouldn't be a huge issue at this point in time. The only part of school i miss is writing papers on foreign policy - i love them to death.

If it wasn't due in the AM, i would recommend you read one of Barber's books. Good insight into the "new school" US foreign policies.
 

kinghami3

Future Turbo Monkey
Jun 1, 2004
2,239
0
Ballard 4 life.
Transcend said:
10 pages on us foreign policy - should take 3 hours max + 1hr for the endnotes, dear god I hate endnotes. Shouldn't be a huge issue at this point in time. The only part of school i miss is writing papers on foreign policy - i love them to death.

If it wasn't due in the AM, i would recommend you read one of Barber's books. Good insight into the "new school" US foreign policies.
3 hours? Maybe if I was writing off the top of my head. I work at the rate of about a page per hour, though I get pretty distracted (hence why I am still up at 2 when I should have been done 2 hours ago).
 

laura

DH_Laura
Jul 16, 2002
6,259
15
Glitter Gulch
kinghami3 said:
3 hours? Maybe if I was writing off the top of my head. I work at the rate of about a page per hour, though I get pretty distracted (hence why I am still up at 2 when I should have been done 2 hours ago).

you should be writing off the top of your head, because you should have gathered your literature and formed your paper structure in your head while you were reviewing it. i write 10 pages papers for in class exams, and i don't get 10 hours.
 

-dustin

boring
Jun 10, 2002
7,155
1
austin
laura said:
you should be writing off the top of your head, because you should have gathered your literature and formed your paper structure in your head while you were reviewing it. i write 10 pages papers for in class exams, and i don't get 10 hours.
****! you write that fast? i had a class last year that gave us a 1.5hr for a 3-essay exam. i didn't finish one essay...all year. i can't gather all my thoughts and organize them that fast (we didn't know the specific topics until the exam). our final exam was ****ing 7 essays in 3hrs. i'd end up with *s all over the place because i'd remember stuff after a while. not to mention hand cramps, and smeared papers (i'm a lefty). it sucked. i hate written essay exams. they should be computer-based.
 

laura

DH_Laura
Jul 16, 2002
6,259
15
Glitter Gulch
the Inbred said:
****! you write that fast? i had a class last year that gave us a 1.5hr for a 3-essay exam. i didn't finish one essay...all year. i can't gather all my thoughts and organize them that fast (we didn't know the specific topics until the exam). our final exam was ****ing 7 essays in 3hrs. i'd end up with *s all over the place because i'd remember stuff after a while. not to mention hand cramps, and smeared papers (i'm a lefty). it sucked. i hate written essay exams. they should be computer-based.
Yes i write that fast, but thats what anthropologists do, they write. a lot.

I agree about computer based exams. My final yesterday looked horrible, scratched out whole sentences that didn't make any sense when i went back and read them. I would love to take essay exams on computers. they would take less time for sure. my hand was so sore yesterday when i finished that i could barely move my fingers.
 

kinghami3

Future Turbo Monkey
Jun 1, 2004
2,239
0
Ballard 4 life.
laura said:
you should be writing off the top of your head, because you should have gathered your literature and formed your paper structure in your head while you were reviewing it. i write 10 pages papers for in class exams, and i don't get 10 hours.
Try writing off the top of your head while discussing 250 pages of 138 cryptic 650 year old theological arguments, while comparing them to even more cryptic arguments from 1500 year old theology. It doesn't happen.
I write a lot too, that's what theologians minoring in history do, but we don't write off the top of our head.
I do agree with the in class essays on computers, except that I don't have a laptop :rolleyes:
 
Jan 7, 2004
686
0
D.C. area
Oh, God, Mike, good luck! Wow. Your post brings back memories. Nine years ago I was in a southern town, not far from you, taking a Shakespeare couse and stressing over the same thing. To make my situation worse, I hadn't read any of the plays in their entirety and my book got stolen shortly before finals. I ended up checking out a kid's book of Shakespeare plays to use as Cliff's Notes!
 

bluebug32

Asshat
Jan 14, 2005
6,141
0
Floating down the Hudson
I'm having flashbacks to how happy I was at graduation.

I was an English major for one semester. That was just long enough to discover that Shakespeare is a tough nut to crack. Good luck.
 
sunny said:
This is not as daunting a task as it may seem. First, assemble a list of the works chonologically. Then categorize the works as they are popularly categorized (comedy, tragedy, etc). Once you have this foundation, you can then focus on the questions your prof presents.
Excellent advice - that's how I would start also. Then I'd categorically regurgitate anything sounding even remotely applicable from my lecture notes. It took me three years of college to figure out that most professors would rather hear their own ideas spit back at them than entertain original thoughts from students. Sad but true.
 

Kopiklokoli

Monkey
Jul 31, 2004
151
0
Nor Cal, of course
I would figure out which plays are in your time frame, go to www.sparknotes.com and look at the themes for each one and focus on the themes that most of the plays have in common.
I just finished a paper on King Lear and Othello, if that would help in any way.
 

BigMike

BrokenbikeMike
Jul 29, 2003
8,931
0
Montgomery county MD
Kopiklokoli said:
I would figure out which plays are in your time frame, go to www.sparknotes.com and look at the themes for each one and focus on the themes that most of the plays have in common.
I just finished a paper on King Lear and Othello, if that would help in any way.

The plays I'm focusing on are MacBeth, Lear, Othello, Troilus and Cressida, Winters Tale, and Antony and Cleopatra.

I'm actually finding some good stuff here, and I would like to thank Sunny for taking time out of her life to go out of her way to help me :love: