Midterm Exam
Three Parts
a) Identifications (15 points)
b) Multiple Choice (15 points)
c) Long Answer (15 points)
Identifications
• These will mostly derive from passages
referred to in lecture.
Ex:
O monstrous beast, how like a swine he lies!
Grim Death, how foul and loathsome is thine image!
Sirs, I will practice on this drunken man.
(Identify the monstrous beast referred to.)
Multiple Choice
• These questions will draw on information from the
lectures.
Ex:
The title-page to the 1623 Folio of Shakespeare’s
plays claims that the edition is published according to
A. the most Expensive printing devices
B. the real Shakespeare
C. both Good and Bad Quartos
D. the True Original Copies
E. the Spirit of all times
Long Answer
• You will be given a long passage and
asked to:
a) identify the play and character speaking
(1 point)
b) briefly explain the context (2 points)
c) Make 6 points of significance about the
passage (12 points)
Richard II
The Marks of Kingship
From Ceremony to Farce
Questions:
• Economic metaphors? What’s with all the
references to money?
• What meaning do the repeated examples
of punning contribute to the play?
• What is the effect of the play’s attention to
the names of things: their changes,
manipulations, loss?
Marks of Kingship
What distinguishes a King from subjects?
Is Sovereignty simply a theatrical role?
• 3.2.164-165, p59
• 5.2.23-28, p92
Queen Elizabeth:
“We Princes…are set on stages, in the
sight and view of all the world duly
observed.”
King James:
The King is “as one set on a stage,
whose smallest actions and gestures,
all the people gazingly do behold”
—Basilicon Doron
Economic Metaphors
Richard: “Thyword is current with him for my death
But dead, thy kingdom cannot buy my breath.”
(1.3.230-231, p21)
Northum: “Words, life and all, old Lancaster hath spent.”
York: “Be York the next that must be bankrout so!
Though death be poor, it ends a mortal woe.”
(2.1.150-152, p32)
Richard: “And if my word be sterling yet in England,
Let it command a mirror hither straight”
(4.1.263-264, p83)
A Discourse of the Commonweal
(published 1581)
• A dialogue involving members from
different social strata (Knight, Doctor,
Merchantman, Husbandman, Capper).
• Currency not only symbolizes physical
goods but the credit of the King’s words.
• Concerned with both causes of economic
instability and social unrest afflicting
England in the mid-sixteenth century.
Origin of Coins
“Whereby began the names of coins, so that
the people needed not to be troubled with
weighing and trying of every piece, being
assured by the mark printed that every
piece contained the weight that was
signified by the mark set on every one.
The prince’s credit was then such among
their subjects as they doubted nothing
therein.”
—Thomas Smith, A Discourse of the Commonweal
Summary of key points:
• The King assigns value, and this extends
beyond money to include social degree.
• Value the King assigns dependent on
credit he enjoys among the people.
• His word, therefore, is a form of currency.
• Destabilizing currency analogous to
destabilizing social order.
Richard’s mistakes
Legal Errors
• He has subjected himself to the law by
leasing out his lands.
• In denying Bolingbroke his hereditary
rights, he has violated social hierarchy.
Only punning?
1.3.254-256, p21-22
Bol: “I have too few [words] to take my leave of you,
When the tongue’s office should be prodigal
To breathe the abundant dolor of the heart.”
5.5.67-68, p105
Groom: “Hail, royal Prince!
Richard: “Thanks, noble peer!
The cheapest of us is ten groats too dear.”
Name changes and Nameless
Woes
• Hereford Lancaster Henry IV
• Aumerle Rutland
• King Richard “I have no name, no title”
• (2.2.39-40, p40) Queen:
“But what it is that is not yet known what,
I cannot name; ’tis nameless woe I wot.”
3.3.126-127, p66
Richard:
“We do debase ourselves, cousin, do we not,
To look so poorly and to speak so fair?”
4.1.284-288, p84
Richard:
Was this the face that faced so many follies,
And was at last outfaced by Bolingbroke?
A brittle glory shineth in this face,
As brittle as the glory in the face,
[Throws glass down]
For there it is, cracked in a hundred shivers.”
Coins of
Richard II
Coins of Henry IV
“Ourscene is alt’red from a serious thing,
And now changed to “The Beggar and the King.”
Act IV, scene 1
• Cf. with Act.1, scene 1: what’s new?
• What’s the truth? Is there any resolution?
Are we any closer to discovering
Woodstock’s murderer?
Act V, scene 3
• Film Clip (6 ½ minutes)
• Dramatic effects of this scene?
• Echo(es) of earlier scenes?
• Other details paralleling Richard and
Henry’s rules:
a) Aumerle’s confederacy reformulates the
conspiracy of Ross, Willoughby, and
Northumberland.
b) Question of Woodstock’s murder remains.
c) Richard’s murder echoes the murder of
Woodstock.
a “new world”?
• No! same scenes performed by different
actors.
• Yes! They’re actors and the reigning
metaphor is one of theatricality.
• Performance privileged over “words.”