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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. What does Hamlet happen upon when he returns to Elsinore from England?

2. How does Romeo gain entrance to the Capulets' ball?

3. In Timon of Athens, the titular character invites his friends to a what?

4. What does Iago suspect Emilia of?

5. Where does Romeo meet Juliet after the ball where they meet?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe Romeo and Juliet's meeting and courtship.

2. What challenge does Bertram make to Helena in All's Well That Ends Well?

3. Why is Romeo banished from Verona?

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

5. What are the marriages that end Measure for Measure?

6. What does Timon do with his chest of gold at the end of his story?

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

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

9. Why does Hamlet kill Polonius?

10. Why cannot Bianca get married in Taming of the Shrew?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In many of his stories, Shakespeare juxtaposes two individuals who are close either as siblings or dear friends. He juxtaposes them through their actions, which reveal character. Write an essay about three of the stories in the collection in which pairs of characters are juxtaposed. What actions does Shakespeare use to juxtapose these characters? What is revealed through this juxtaposition? Do the characters become more or less similar as the story continues?

Essay Topic 2

Tales from Shakespeare translates the plays of William Shakespeare into a series of twenty stories intended for children. In this process, Charles Lamb has kept some of the more adult themes that were present in the plays. Write an essay in three parts dealing with the prevalence of adult themes in the collection:

Part 1) In comedies like The Winter's Tale and Much Ado About Nothing and tragedies like Othello, Shakespeare deals with infidelity and mistrust between lovers. How do these themes manifest themselves? Which characters suffer as a result, and what is learned from this painful experience?

Part 2) In King Lear and Hamlet, in particular, Shakespeare deals with the duty a child owes his or her parents. Discuss the strained relationships at the center of these stories. What sense of neglect or betrayal exists in them? How are these relationships more intense forms of everyday struggles?

Part 3) Shakespeare deals fairly unsparingly with intolerance in The Merchant of Venice and Othello. What types of intolerance are discussed in these stories? Which characters subjugate which? What is learned about this type of racial and religious intolerance over the course of the narrative?

Essay Topic 3

Many of Shakespeare's stories take place in the court of ruling people. In such stories - like Cymbeline, Macbeth, King Lear, or Hamlet - the acquisition power is the driver of conflict. Write an essay charting the way power changes hands in three such stories. Who loses power who should control it? What usurper or group of usurpers takes power, and how is this unnatural acquisition reighted by the end of the narrative?

(see the answer keys)

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