This is a take-home exam, to be written in a 70 minute period and submitted on Wednesday February 21. You will be told which three of the six questions listed will actually appear on the exam by email Friday February 16. You willl choose one to answer in an essay of about 500 words. Three of the following six questions will appear on the midterm exam.

1. "For indeed poetry [i.e literature in general] ever sets virtue so

out in her best colors…that one must needs be enamored of her. And of

the contrary part, if evil men come to the stage, they ever go out…so

manacled as they little animate folks to follow them." Sir Philip

Sidney defends the value of poetry, as a means of improving morals

--making virtue attractive and vice repulsive. Either support or take

issue with this claim by reference to one play by Shakespeare, a section

of the King James Bible, and one other work read this quarter.

2. Compare and contrast the relationship between rulers (including God)

and subjects in one book of the Bible, in writings by Queen Elizabeth

and in The Tempest

3. Apply the discussion of symbolism and coded meanings in Matthew 13 to

the experience of reading Utopia, a lyric poem by Ralegh, Sidney,

Shakespeare or Mary Herbert, and The Tempest.

4. Discuss the theme of lying vs. truth-tellling in three of the

following works: Genesis, Utopia, Ralegh’s "The Lie," Othello

5. Describe ways in which one character is created and developed in the

Bible, a play by Shakespeare, and one other work [see "A paradigm for

literary study]

6. Discuss similarities and differences between love and lust as

depicted in Genesis, Othello or The Tempest, and a poem by Sidney or

Ralegh.