Women & Feminism in Shakespeare
Type two research papers in MLA format on one or more of the texts covered on (or related to) this course. The focal text(s) for Paper 2 should be different from those for Paper 1.
Minimum Requirements for Each Paper
Length
Each paper should be minimum six pages (not including the Works Cited list) in Times New Roman 12.
Primary Sources
The number of primary sources (literary texts, movies, etc.) is up to you.
Secondary Sources
Refer to at least three secondary sources. At least two should be substantial sources (at least one peer-reviewed journal article, plus another journal article or a book chapter). The third could be another journal article or book chapter, a newspaper or magazine article, a documentary, or a reliable Internet source. (You may also use a superficial source, such as a specialist encyclopedia or Wikipedia, to help you get started, but it won’t count towards the three required secondary sources).
Suggested Prompts
Choose two of the following suggestions, or invent your own prompts (if you do the latter, clear them with me via email before you start to work on your essays).
Some of these prompts are developed more than others and some may be partial repeats. Some literary texts aren’t in our textbook, but you can probably find online versions.
Note: After you have used a text’s full title once in your paper, you may use a shortened version (e.g., use GGK or Gawain for Sir Gawain and the Green Knight).
What does treasure signify in Beowulf and “The Pardoner’s Tale,” respectively?
In what ways do attitudes towards treasure in these texts reflect the value systems of Anglo-Saxon England (newly Christian with a heroic heritage), and late-fourteenth-century England?
In addition to “The Pardoner’s Tale,” you may also refer to “The Pardoner’s Prologue, The Pardoner’s Epilogue, and information on the Pardoner from The General Prologue.
How is heroism or masculinity defined in heroic culture and chivalric culture, respectively?
To illustrate your thesis, compare and contrast Beowulf and Sir Gawain as heroes/ideal men. Your essay should note relevant differences between the genres of the heroic epic and the medieval romance.
Compare Beowulf to another hero in literature, such as Odysseus.
Compare and contrast the portrayal of courtly love in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and “The Miller’s Tale,” respectively. Your essay should note relevant differences between the genres of the medieval romance and the fabliau. In addition to “The Miller’s Tale,” you may also refer to “The Miller’s Prologue” and information on the Miller from “The General Prologue.”
Compare and contrast the portrayal of courtly love in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and “Lanval.”
To what extent is “Lanval” an anti-romance?
Discuss the role of the supernatural (monsters) in Beowulf and Sir Gawain. For example, how should we interpret Grendel and the Green Knight?
Are they demons, fertility gods (manifestations of the green man, jack-in-the-green etc.), wildmen, etc. All of the above? None of the above? Apply monster theory to the texts.
Select one text and compare it to a modern rewrite, movie version, animated version, graphic novel version, etc. (For example, a Beowulf movie, The Green Knight movie, the animated series of The Canterbury Tales, the BBC Retold series of The Canterbury Tales, either version of Bedazzled, etc.) Possible research questions include the following:
Is the modern version an adaptation that illuminates or remains faithful to the original in essentials, or a mutation that barely resembles the original?
(For example, you could argue that the movie Beowulf and Grendel is too far removed from the original to be effective, because the motivation it gives Grendel completely changes the main themes of the poem. How does the portrayal of the devil, or devil’s assistant by a woman in Bedazzled affect the themes of Dr. Faustus, etc.).
What do the differences between the original and the modern version tell us about the differences between the societies that produced them? For example, why do postmodern audiences want to sympathize with monsters?
Use the handout on evaluating a belief to analyze the critical thinking skills of the characters in one of the texts (and/or movie versions) we have read so far.
Compare Nicholas in The BBC Retold version of “The Miller’s Tale” to Iago in Oliver Parker’s movie of Othello. You could, for example, do some research on psychopaths.
Apply narrative theory/narratology to one or more Canterbury Tales.
Is Chaucer’s portrayal of the Wife of Bath misogynist, of its time, or proto-feminist?
Compare “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” to “The Clerk’s Tale.” What insight can be gained into each tale by comparing them?
Analyze the symbolism in the BBC Retold version of The Sea Captain’s Tale (e.g., blood, money, jewelry, blue, antique weapons, etc.).
Compare two or more translations of any text. Focus on short passages. For example, you could compare two or three translations of “The Wife’s Lament.”
Compare paintings of scenes from, for example, Beowulf, or Sir Gawain, or Othello with the original written scenes.
Apply reader response theory to any text. For this you can compare your initial reactions recorded in a reading response with how your interpretation changed following class discussion and a second reading. You could read Stanley Fish’s article, “Is There a Text in this Class?” and answer that question.
Choose any combination of two or more of the following female characters: The Wife of Bath (in the “General Prologue to the CT” and “The Wife of B’s Prologue”), Eve in Book 9 of Paradise Lost, The Duchess of Malfi, Viola or Olivia from Twelfth Night, or Moll Flanders. Discuss the ways in which your chosen characters challenge the conventions of their societies.
Choose any combination of two or more of the following texts: More’s Utopia, Behn’s Oroonoko, Equiano’s Life of Equiano, Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. Either discuss utopian and/or dystopian themes in your chosen texts, or discuss how your chosen texts use accounts of real or imaginary foreign societies/cultures to criticize English society/culture. Your answer may include descriptions of narrative point of view in addition to examples of events or scenes in each text.
Evaluate the movie of Dr. Faustus, starring Richard Burton, as a rendition of Marlowe’s play.
Compare Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus and the movie Bedazzled (old or new version).For example, how do they explore the meaning of life or the essence of happiness?
Dr. Faustus desires many things (wealth, power, Helen of Troy), except what today is promoted as the key to happiness in many American sitcoms: being part of a middle class family. Compare Dr. Faustus to one of those sitcoms.
Compare the literary uses of the pilgrimage in two or more texts (Everyman, The Canterbury Tales, The Pilgrim’s Progress).
How should we interpret the anonymity and apparent featurelessness of the woman—or women?—to whom Donne addresses the “Songs and Sonnets”?
How is the reader meant to respond to the blending of sacred and sexual elements in Donne’s religious poetry? And in his love poetry?
Compare The Duchess of Malfi with The Tragedy of Mariam.
To what extent is Milton’s Satan a sympathetic character? When does he cease to be so? Did Milton have a conscious intention here or was he, as Blake later said, “of the devil’s party without knowing it?”
How, compared with other seventeenth-century writers such as Lanyer and Speght, does Milton depict the Fall? Does he attribute more or less culpability to Eve than do the two women writers?
Compare Robinson Crusoe to another island narrative, such as The Swiss Family Robinson, Castaway, Gilligan’s Island, etc.
Evaluate a movie version or adaptation of Robinson Crusoe or Moll Flanders.
Analyze Pope’s The Rape of the Lock in light our culture. For example, you could compare the protagonist of the poem to Britney Spears.
Develop the Getty assignment (comparing a text to a painting) into an essay.
Practice or evaluate Darwinian literary criticism. For example, apply evolutionary psychology to the Wife of Bath. Or evaluate the chapter on Othello from Madam Bovary’s Ovaries by David P. Barash and Nanelle R. Barash.
Look on Youtube for three or so performances of a poem by actors and compare them. For example, you could look at Alan Rickman (Snape) reading Shakespeare’s sonnet 130.
Compare Milton’s portrayal of Satan to the portrayal of this character in today’s popular culture (such as the TV series Lucifer).
Prompts on Othello:
Roderigo, Cassio, and Othello are all fooled by Iago. Show how a comparison of these three sheds light on each individual.
Compare two or three of the couples in the play—Othello and Desdemona, Cassio and Bianca, and Iago and Emilia. You could, for example, rank them according to who is best or worst suited.
Compare the relationship between Othello and Desdemona to one or two paintings of Mars (the god of war) and Venus (the goddess of love).
Compare the three female characters in the play—Desdemona, Emilia, and Bianca. What do they suggest about gender roles in Jacobean society? You could include an analysis of Desdemona’s handkerchief.
(In Cinthio’s tales, the handkerchief is described as “Moorish.” Shakespeare adds the strawberries. Bianca is also Shakespeare’s invention.)
Explore the theme of what happens to military men when the war is over. Othello, for example, says he has been in battles almost permanently since the age of 7. Iago says he has fought next to Othello in many places.
Neither is given any time to readjust to domestic life after the war with the Turks is over. How does their experience in the military affect them?
What is Iago’s motivation? Explore possibilities and argue which is most likely, or whether he doesn’t have one at all.
Analyze Iago’s soliloquys. You could focus on Kenneth Branagh’s interpretation in Oliver Parker’s movie version.
Give a postcolonial analysis of the play in which you consider the different levels of “Others and others” For example, Iago could be Spanish, Cassio is a Florentine, Othello is a Moor who has traveled all his life so has no fixed abode, and they are all part of the Venetian city state and fight the Turks together.
Explore the themes of wit and witchcraft in the play. For example, Brabantio accuses Othello of using witchcraft to win Desdemona. Othello claims the handkerchief he gives Desdemona has magical properties.
Iago tells Roderigo that “we work by wit, and not by witchcraft.” Which is more powerful in the play? To what extent is with like witchcraft and vice versa?
Explore the way the settings of Othello contribute to its themes. You could look at the macro settings (Venice and Cyprus), and/or the micro settings (e.g., the armory, the beach, the dungeons, and the bedchamber in the movie starring Laurence Fishburne).
Evaluate the movie O. Would you describe it as an adaptation or a mutation of Othello? That is, would you describe it as Shakespeare, in essence? Or does it stray too far from the play?
Analyze Iago’s bestiary (goats, monkeys, spiders, rams, horses, etc.) and demonstrate how his references to creatures contribute to the play’s themes and unity.
Choose three characters from Othello and rank them according to who is the most tragic. Research the concept of the tragic flaw. Aristotle said that the tragic flaw of a tragic hero (or heroine) leads to his or her downfall.
However, there is disagreement over what he meant by a tragic flaw, exactly. Critics usually interpret it as a faulty character trait, such as excessive pride, ambition, or jealousy, etc. Elizabeth Vandiver, on the other hand, says that the Greek word for tragic flaw simply means mistake. Which is your preferred definition, and why?
Analyze the function of one to three key words that are repeated throughout the play (such as Moor, devil, honest, etc.).
Choose two or three characters and assess their critical thinking skills.
Do some research on psychopaths and use it to analyze Iago. Look at recent research in Scientific American, for example.
Compare the three scenes in Act 3 in which Iago brainwashes Othello. (You could also add the “Now art thou my lieutenant” scene.)
Compile and analyze the proverbs that Iago uses and assess their function in the play.
