What to do for Wednesday, January 19, 2005 (no class on
Monday):
- Read all of Richard III. Since your time is
limited, what I’ll probably do is summarize the plot for you in Acts I-III and
then just ask you to read Acts IV-V. This is when the action really picks up.
(Note: I encourage you to read the play out loud with other people. This is
the best way to understand Shakespeare. Also, silly as it sounds, it will help
your understanding if you have little figures to represent the characters,
figures that you can move around.)
- I want you to write about two things:
- Take one moment of great writing (a line, a couple of
lines, a bunch of lines) and copy it down. Then explain why this is so
beautiful or magnificent to you. (100 words for the explanation will be
fine.)
- Choose one of these three and answer it in a very
informal way. This is not an essay; rather, it’s a first attempt at coming
up with an opinion and then supporting that opinion with quotes. 300 words
or so should do it (but I never count words and of course you can write as
much as you want). You can type it; you can write it in crayon. The point is
to look closely at the language and to draw conclusions from that evidence.
i.
Now that Richard becomes king, do you think his speech changes? Does he
deal with people differently? And is he a more or less interesting character?
ii.
On page 785 (IV, iv 291) Richard is up to his old tricks. He tells
Elizabeth, the woman who deeply despises him, that he wants her daughter for his
wife and to have children with her. Compare the effectiveness of this speech
with his earlier seduction of Anne (I, ii).
iii.
Look at the speeches of King Richard and Richmond toward the end of the
play (pages 789 and 792). How do these speeches reflect different human beings,
different characters? Specifically, what does Shakespeare do to make one of them
sound nobler than the other.
Note: For the two that you don’t
write about, still think about them and maybe jot down some notes.