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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 good do Romeo and Juliet's deaths bring at the end of the story?
2. Which of the following is Iago's reason for wanting to destroy Othello?
3. Who does Olivia marry at the end of Twelfth Night?
4. What request does the ghost of Hamlet's father make?
5. Why does Bertram think he is within his rights to propose to Diana in All's Well That Ends Well?
Short Essay Questions
1. How is the opening of Twelfth Night similar to the story that begins Comedy of Errors?
2. What plot does Claudius concoct to be rid of Hamlet at the end of the story?
3. What wager is involved in the final part of Taming of the Shrew?
4. Describe Iago's revenge against Othello.
5. Why does the Duke of Vienna give up power at the beginning of Measure for Measure?
6. How does Pericles lose Thaisa at sea?
7. Why is Hamlet dissolute at the beginning of the story?
8. How is Angelo corrupted in Measure for Measure?
9. How does Helena trick Bertram out of his ring in All's Well That Ends Well?
10. How does Helena become betrothed to Bertram in the beginning of All's Well That Ends Well?
Essay Topics
Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:
Essay Topic 1
Many Shakespearean stories involve an individual attempting to subvert a social structure: Macbeth, Othello, Shylock, Hamlet, Katharine. Write an essay about three such characters and discuss how this attempt progresses in the story. Why does this character choose to subvert this system? What does he or she want to achieve, and what subversive actions does he or she take? How does this character end up as a result?
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
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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This section contains 1,262 words (approx. 5 pages at 300 words per page) |
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