Relate one or more incidents
in Shakespeare in Love to aspects of the texts we have read, for example
,
the wager about whether
or not a play can tell the truth of love or other debates about the value
of the arts to the debate about poetry engaged in by Sidney.
the relation between
romance and frustration
Compare and contrast
definitions of pleasure and attitudes toward it among the Utopians and the
poets.
Discuss the process
of colonization and attitudes toward the colonized in Utopia. Raleigh's
Discovery of the large, beautiful and rich Empire of Guiana and the
Voyage literature on pp. 1066-1078
"Guiana is a country that hath yet her maidenhead, never sacked,
turned, nor wrought..."(p. 1064) Discuss the discourse of virginity in
the travel literature, the poetic complaints, and Elizabeth's self-fashioned
image.
Compare and contrast
the functions and values of the arts in Sidney and the Utopians
Analyze the wordplay
in one of the poems we've read with extensive citation of 16th century meanings
and etymology from the OED
In close imitation of
Utopia or one of the travel narratives, write a description of an ideal community
you discover on a voyage and how it surpasses your own society
Poem exercise
Pick a poem and copy
it in longhand word for word--learning the rhythn and meter.
Write a free imitation
of that poem in your own language about your own experience.
Write an explication
of your own poem, discussing the intertextual references to the poem you
imitated.
Find and explain humorous
passages in the works we've read so far.
Discuss the construction
of beginnings or endings in four or five short poems.