Shakespeare 

HAMLET 

Mythological Allusions To Know-REQUIRED 

https://ms01001032.schoolwires.net/cms/lib/MS01001032/Centricity/Domain/724/Allusions-2023-Update.pdf

Shakespeare Play Adaptation Project 

You will be working in a group (2-8 students) to adapt one scene of the play for performance in class. While you’re expected to adapt the language of the play to your more modern setting, and cut down the lines as needed, you must preserve the Early Modern English, major events, and tone of each scene in the act. You should also make sure that every member of your “cast” has a performance role. Be creative with setting your play in time, and place. The setting should affect the story and its language, while still retaining the elastic form of the play. 

HOW TO CITE SHAKESPEARE IN YOUR PAPERS 

Citing Shakespeare in MLA format www.southplainscollege.edu/exploreprograms/artsandsciences/english/HowtoCiteShakespeareinMLA.pdf 

Citing the DSM:5 for Psychoanalysis 

https://valenciacollege.edu/students/library/mla-apa-chicago-guides/documents/DSM-V-MLA.pdf

Sonnet Lecture Notes

                                                   The Wars of the Roses: The Tudor Family Tree 

Six! The Soundtrack 

                                                                  Shakespeare's Globe Virtual Tour 

                                               Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, DC 

                                                            Instructor Notes on Macbeth 

Historical Context Macbeth: Was Macbeth Even Real?  https://mseffie.com/assignments/macbeth/Assignments/Historical%20Context.pdf

Which sonnet do you prefer? 18 or 130? 

Sparknotes Macbeth Summary  www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/macbeth/summary/ 

Macbeth Character List https://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/macbeth/characters/

Shakespeare Life & Times https://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/life-and-times/

Ms. Effenger's Macbeth Website 

MACBETH ONE PAGER https://mseffie.com/assignments/macmseffie.com/assignments/macbeth/Assignments/Macbeth%20One-Pager.pdf beth/Assignments/Macbeth%20One-Pager.pdf

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM 

                     Sparknotes A Midsummer Night's Dream Website  

Discussion Questions

• How many plots can you identify in this play?  What is the relationship between the plots, and where do they intersect?

• What is the story of Pyramus and Thisbe?  Does it remind you of any other works you know by Shakespeare?  Is it significant that Shakespeare has the "rude mechanicals" perform this play?

• Some scholars have noted that in many of Shakespeare's comedies we can identify a "space that is provided by a temporary freedom from the pressures of a real social world . . . [that] allows characters to 'play' at solutions which could (we imagine) resolve the impediments that real life imposes on happiness" (G.K. Hunter, Oxford History of English Literature, vol. 6, p. 389).  If this is true, in what ways does the "real" world of MND respond to the "holiday" world it creates?  What actually happens in this "holiday" or "green" world?  (See also the essays by C. L. Barber and Northrop Frye on this idea; copies are available on Blackboard under Course Documents.)

• This play presents many different views of love and marriage.  How many can you identify?  How are these different versions of love related to each other?

• There are numerous references to the eyes and seeing in the play--what is their significance?  How are these references related to the play's thematic treatment of fantasy and imagination?

• Nearly all of Shakespeare's comedies (and many of his tragedies) dramatize conflicts between parents and children and the rites of passage that children experience in their journey to maturity.  What rites of passage are depicted in this play?

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM WEBQUEST schmidtamidsummernightsdreamwebquest.weebly.com/ 

USE WITH WORKSHEET BELOW.  ⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️

https://www.coursehero.com/lit/A-Midsummer-Nights-Dream/

Discussion Questions for Comp II 

There is so much to discuss about A Midsummer Night’s Dream, one of Shakespeare’s most beloved and performed plays. This text will give us a first look at the structure and tropes of a comedy, and we will focus on gender, class, and Elizabethan worldview and order. Of course, there is so much more to discuss, so feel free to riff off of these questions with any other insights or ideas you have.

Act I:

1.  The first act and scene set the exposition, conflict, and tone. What are these and how do they foretell the play’s outcome?

2. Creating contrasting binaries is a popular device used by Shakespeare throughout his plays. Identify some contrasting elements and speculate on their purpose.

Act II

3. Welcome to the green world! This is the pastoral setting where all traditional structures are broken (Goodbye Great Chain of Being!). Howdoes the fairy world in Act II compare or contrast with the Athenian world in Act 1? (language, characters, setting, tone). What is symbolic about the woods/forests?

4. All Shakespearean comedies have multiple subplots (think of your modern day sitcom).This play has four different plot strands (the young lovers, Theseus and Hippolyta, Titania and Oberon, and the artisans). What connections do you see between these plot strands? How do they interact and to what effect?

5. Many of Shakespeare’s plays focus on different body parts. This one has repeating eye imagery. Act II introduces the device of the love potion on the eyes. What symbolically might this represent?

Act III

6. In Act III Scene 1 Bottom claims, “A lion among ladies is a most dreadful thing.” Analyze his conclusion to explain to the ladies in a prologue that Snug is really just “a man as other men are.” How do Bottom and the other artisans (also called Mechanicals) talk about theater? How could this relate to the play's emphasis on dreaming, imagining, etc.?

7. Examine Act III from a Feminist Lens. Scene 1 finds Titania, our titanic female hero, completely punked by Puck putting the flower potion on her eyes to make her fall in the love with Bottom, who is now literally and ass. What?!? Who is ultimately in power? How? Likewise, Hermia and Helena are full on paws and claws! Analyze Hermia’s attack on Helena in Act III Scene 2, “You juggler, you cankerblossom, You thief of love! What have you come by night and stol’n my loves heart from him?” What would feminist theory conclude about female competition for a man?

Act IV

8. Animal imagery is everywhere in Midsummer. Helena compares herself to a bear and asks Demetrius to treat her like a dog; Titania falls in love with a donkey, etc. In Act 4 Scene 1, Theseus compares the sound of a pack of hounds hunting an animal to prized orchestral music. What is the purpose of all this animal imagery?

9. Is there a climax in this play?

10. How does the setting help reflect restored order?  Robin Goodfellow (Puck) claims “Jack shall have Jill; Not shall go ill; The man shall have his mare again and all shall be well.” Is everything truly “well”?

Act V

11. All comedies end in a wedding or a play. What is the purpose of the play within the play?

12. What tone does Puck’s epilogue give?

13. Overall, what are the big themes in the play?