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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. How does Pericles win the Thaisa's hand in marriage?

2. What does Katharine do when Petruchio does not show for their wedding in Taming of the Shrew?

3. What false name does Viola take when she enters Orsino's employ in Twelfth Night?

4. Why have Romeo and Juliet never met before the ball?

5. What does Petruchio declare he will do if he does not wed Katharine by Sunday?

Short Essay Questions

1. What plot does Claudius concoct to be rid of Hamlet at the end of the story?

2. Why does the Duke of Vienna give up power at the beginning of Measure for Measure?

3. How does Petruchio tame Katharine on their wedding day?

4. How does Timon of Athens lose faith in mankind?

5. Why is Hamlet dissolute at the beginning of the story?

6. How does Pericles reunite with his daughter and wife at the end of the story?

7. In Pericles, how does Marina become a slave?

8. What wager is involved in the final part of Taming of the Shrew?

9. What is the state of affairs between Ephesus and Syracuse in Comedy of Errors?

10. What happens when Viola, in disguise, goes to Olivia on Orsino's behalf?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Shakespeare's stories often involve a divide between the town - with its merchants and political squabbles - and the country, a setting of ease and merriment. Citing specific stories from the text, discuss in an essay how Shakespeare uses this divide in his stories. What can occur in the country that cannot in the town? How are interactions different? Why do people choose to - or are forced to - leave the city? Do comedies or tragedies use this device more often?

Essay Topic 2

Coincidence plays an important role in all of the Shakespearean narratives. Individuals lose and find each other often, and always at just the right moment. Write an essay three cases of coincidence that are important to drawing the narrative forward in the story:

Part 1) How does Hermione end up in the cave where her long-estranged brothers live? Discuss the series of unconnected circumstances that drew her to this place, and why she immediately leaves it. How is all made right and this reunion explained in the end of Cymbeline?

Part 2) Discuss how Leontes loses his child at the beginning of The Winter's Tale. What series of events bring her back to him with a significant suitor? Were any of these events perpetrated by the repentant Leontes? What is the result of Paulina's return at the end of the play?

Part 3) How does the life of Pericles, Prince of Tyre, mean that coincidence is always a factor for him? Discuss the process by which Pericles loses his entire family and how he gets them back. What factors - supernatural and natural - contribute to this reunion?

Essay Topic 3

Tales from Shakespeare contains stories based on Shakespeare's comedies and tragedies. Write a three part essay, discussing the difference between Shakespearean tragedy and comedy, citing specific examples of each in the three sections:

Part 1) What features make a tragedy in Shakespeare? How do they almost always end? Discuss which components of narrative are always the same in a tragedy. What type of lesson does Shakespeare intend for the writer to take away from the experience? How does he impart these themes?

Part 2) How does a comedy progress? What is the traditional ending to a Shakespearean comedy? Discuss how a comedy develops differently from a tragedy, and what it relates about humanity. What parts of the human existence does Shakespeare omit in writing a comedy?

Part 3) Compare the experience of reading a comedy and tragedy? How do protagonists in each of these differ in terms of their objectives and dynamic nature? Discuss what the reader is supposed to sympathize with in each case.

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