Midterm answers

Name_____________________

General Instructions: Make sure you read all instructions carefully.Write your answers to sections I and II on this exam.Answer sections III and IV in your blue book.

I.Very brief answers (one or two words to a sentence at most).5 points. (1 point each.)

To what does a “Quarto edition” of a Shakespeare play refer?
A quarto was one of the two book formats in which early editions of Shakespeare’s plays were printed (the other was folio).  A quarto is created by folding a sheet of paper in half, twice.  Quartos, in contrast to the folio, were single editions of the plays, and published earlier than the first folio, which was the first (nearly) complete works of Shakespeare, published in 1632.

Why were the theaters in Shakespeare’s London typically located outside the city walls?
Because the London government, as well as some Protestants (often referred to as Puritans, though the opposition was wider than this) objected to putting on plays as immoral.  There was also worry about large crowds.  Note: while I did not take off points for this mistake, the monarchy/nobles were not generally opposed to plays.  Indeed, they sponsored plays and defended them against the Londoners and others who objected.

Of what people, before she becomes empress of Rome, is Tamora the queen?
The Goths

At the end of Titus Andronicus Saturninus remarks that he has gone in disguise among the people and learned of their hatred of him.What other ruler have we read about who goes in disguise to learn what people think of him?
King Henry

Name a character in Henry V who mainly speaks in French.
Princess Catherine. Note that while other characters in the play occasionally speak in French, it is only Catherine and her maid who mainly speak in French.  So I did not count those other characters as correct.

II. Definition and application of literary terms and concepts.For each term or concept: 1. define the term as precisely as possible, and 2. provide an example of what the term or concept describes from one of the plays we’ve read so far (Titus or most of Henry V).If the term refers to a particular kind of language that would be hard to characterize from memory, you can draw your example(s) from either of the two passages in section III.25 points. (5 points each.)

General comment: The directions explicitly require an example from one of the plays we’ve read so far, so if you gave an example not from the plays, I took off a point (assuming your definition was correct).  If you provided no example, I took off two points (assuming your definition was okay).

Alliteration
The repetition of initial consonant sounds.  Example: And curtained with a counsel-keeping cave

Prose
Writing organized by the sentence and the paragraph (the kind of writing we ordinarily do, as in this answer), rather than by line and rhythm (meter), as in poetry.  In Shakespeare, the lower class characters tend to speak in prose, the elites in poetry.  Hence, for example, when Henry V in disguise argues with Williams and the other commoners, they all speak in prose.

Binary Opposition
The tendency (often seen as a Western one) to organize our thinking into opposites: mind or body, good or evil, etc.  In Titus Andronicus, the play is heavily organized by the binary civilized/barbaric, though part of its complexity is that Rome, supposedly the height of the civilized (in contrast to the barbaric Goths) starts to look pretty barbaric itself.  Another binary from Titus: chaste (Lavinia) and lascivious (Tamora).

Metatheatricality
A reference to acting within a play.  Examples from Titus include Tamora acting as revenge, or Titus pretending (acting) to be fooled by this act.  In Henry V, Henry explicitly acts in the role of a more common soldier when he walks in disguise, and the play also suggests the way being a king is a role that the king must act.

Circumlocution
Using more words than necessary to express something.  The first passage below is filled with circumlocution.  Examples include “yellowing noise” (since “yelllowing” itself describes a noise, the word “noise” makes the phrase a circumlocution) “wandering prince” to name Aeneas and “possess a golden slumber” rather than “fall asleep.”

III. Close paraphrase of passages into modern English.Your paraphrase should follow the passage as closely as possible while at the same time “translating” when necessary it into ordinary, modern English vocabulary and expression.

A. Tamora:Let us[1] sit down and mark their yellowing[2] noise;
And, after conflict[3] such as was supposed
The wandering prince[4] and Dido[5] once enjoyed,
When with a happy[6] storm they were surprised
And curtained with a counsel-keeping cave,
We may, each wreathed[7] in the other’s arms,
Our pastimes done, possess a golden slumber;
Whiles hounds and horns and sweet melodious birds
Be unto us as is a nurse’s song
Of lullaby to bring her babe asleep.
Let’s sit down and listen to their baying and, after the kind of sex as it was thought Aneas and Dido one had, when a well-timed storm surprised them and they hid in a secret cave, we may, twisted in each other’s arms, our pleasures (i.e. sex) over, go to sleep, while hounds and horns and sweetly singing birds serve us as does a nurse’s song, a lullaby to bring her babe to sleep.

B. Pistol[8]: A noble[9] shalt thou have, and present pay[10];
And liquor likewise will I give to thee,
And friendship shall combine, and brotherhood:
I’ll live by Nym, and Nym shall live by me;
Is not this just? for I shall sutler[11] be
Unto the camp, and profits will accrue.
Give me thy hand.

I’ll give you a noble right now, as well as liquor, and we’ll join in friendship and brotherhood (or, more literally but less idiomatic: friendship and brotherhood will bring us together).  I’ll live with the help of Nym, and Nym will live with the help of me.  Isn’t this fair?  For I’m going to be a provider of food and drink to the (army) camp, and make profits from that.  Give me your hand.

IV. Essay.10 points.Pick one of the following two prompts to respond to. You may wish to take notes or make an outline before beginning to write.

1.We learned that many people living during Shakespeare’s day thought plays were immoral and taught people to act in immoral ways.Others thought that plays could promote morality and the authority of the English crown or its nobility.Using examples from Titus Andronicus and Henry V argue for either or both of these possibilities.

To a great extent, Titus Andronicus would seem to be a play that would support the common belief in Shakespeare’s day that plays promoted immorality, while Henry V would suggest the opposite, that plays could promote morality and the authority of the English crown.  In many respects Titus is an immoral play.  It features murder, rape and bodily mutilation, adultery, sexual relationship that crosses racial, ethnic and religious lines (crossings that most would have seen as immoral in Shakespeare’s day), deceit, revenge and cannibalism.  What kind of immorality doesn’t it contain?  Further, even the supposedly “good” characters in the play, such as Titus, are of questionable morality, so that the play also questions the virtue of those who are supposed to be leaders to their subordinates or to “uncivilized” people.  On the other hand, in Henry V, Henry is repeatedly show to be a leader worth following: he’s strong in his response to the French, but not overbearing to his men.  Characters in the play repeatedly praise him.   In addition to showing the punishment of bad behavior–treason among the elite, theft the commoners–the play explicitly praises the idea of “obedience” and the need for a clear social hierarchy.  It also promotes a patriotic attitude toward England in relationship to France.

Nonetheless, this difference between Titus and Henry isn’t absolute.  Titus could be said to promote morality by showing that in the end the evil characters are punished.  Likewise, while the Henry V explicitly and repeatedly praises Henry, there are also actions or events in the play that could be seen as more critical of the king: his breaking of Falstaff’s heart and being the cause for Falstaff’s demise, his ability to flatter others to get what he wants, his making of an example of Bardolf, his former friend, his love of manipulating situations, as when he gives William’s glove to Fluellan.  It’s worth noting that Saturninus and Henry have in common that they go in disguise among the populace to see how ordinary people talk about them.

Hence we can say that neither of these plays is completely moral or immoral, conducive of authority and critical of it.  And for that reason the question of whether plays were good influences or not was especially open for debate.

2.We learned that the ideal political order in Shakespeare’s day involved hierarchical relationships, in which everyone had his or her place, just as each planet had its particular orbit, with God or his deputy the monarch putting the whole system into motion.How do both Titus Andronicus and Henry V reflect or comment on this ideal?

Though in different ways, both Titus Andronicus and Henry V reflect the belief in Shakespeare’s day that society required fixed and hierarchically ordered social relationships.  In Titus, we we this belief reflected negatively, in that we are presented with the disastrous consequences of the breakdown of social hierarchy.  The rot begins at the head, with Saturninus a weak ruler over a Rome with out justice, in which rape, murder and mutilation go unpunished–at least while Saturninus is at its head.  And indeed, he is not at its head, in that Tamora seems much more intelligent than Saturninus, and tells him what to do.  Hence there is a violation of the expected dominance of the man over the woman.  At the same time, Aaron has a good deal of control over his lover Tamora, so that he, as he tells us, can be the actual rule of Rome.  He rules Tamora, who rules Saturninus.  Since Aaron is an outsider–a racial, ethnic and religious other–we again have the violation of the expected hierarchy in which the Roman would rule the foreigner.  On the other hand, Titus expects total obedience from his children even to the point of killing one who disobeys.  While such obedience in the abstract might seem to support the idea of the importance of social hierarchy, in Titus it seems to be an extreme reaction to the extreme of social disorder, and almost as undesirable.  With no regular hierarchy ruling Rome, and the idea of obedience transformed into a kind of violence of its own, we are left in Titus with no admirable hierarchy, but a “wilderness of tigers.”  The play therefore makes us feel the need for an admirable social hierarchy.

Henry V gives us that admirable hierarchy, and so is a positive example of the need for it.  King Henry is show to be a strong ruler, one who will punish traitors or petty thieves.  He has the strong respect of his nobles, and he is keen to know what his commoners think of him so that he can obtain their respect as well.  The play shows a successful army where everyone should work together, especially foreigners (Scots, Irish, Welsh soldiers) who all loyally serve their English king.  At the same time, while the play shows the king in control and respected, it does not make his authority harsh, as Titus’ is.  Just the opposite, he is repeatedly shown to be humble, kind, even witty, and therefore he can claim to be his men’s friend and brother as well as their king–though in the last instance, he is their king.