Examine the relationship between nature imagery and ‘love’ in the works of Shakespeare Assignment | Online Assignment

Unit Leader Dr David Miller

In consultation with their tutors, students are also encouraged to formulate their own essay questions. Any question formulated by the student in consultation with their tutor should be articulated and agreed at least seven weeks prior to the submission date. You can begin framing it earlier if you wish, again in collaboration and consultation with your tutor. If you decide to write on film adaptations, two films constitute two texts, even of the same play.

1.       Examine the relation of the sonnets to the Petrarchan and older Renaissance schools of love poetry. (In answering this question, you may use a selection of non-Shakespearean sonnets or poems as one of the two texts).

2.       Examine the relationship between nature imagery and ‘love’ in the works of Shakespeare.

3.       Examine and discuss the way madness (real or feigned) and error interfere with relationships of power an authority in at least two of Shakespeare’s plays.

4.       ‘[Rosalind’s] role is to embody and make available to the audience the performative nature of those natural categories that we take for granted, such as gender’ (Penny Gay). Discuss the relationship between identity and performance as explored in TWO or more plays studied the unit.

5.       Examine the conventions of pastoral in two of Shakespeare’s comedies.

6.       ‘Shakespeare may be called a true feminist, since he not only expresses the need for women’s emancipation, but also acknowledges the reality of their present oppression.’ Assess the validity of this claim with reference to TWO or more plays studied the unit.

7.       ‘[Shakespeare] became, during the colonial period, the quintessence of Englishness and a measure of humanity itself.’ (Ania Loomba and Martin Orkin). Discuss the representation of Englishness and/or the racial other in any TWO plays you have studied on this unit.

8.       ‘In the English Renaissance theatre, the text is structured by the multiple and complex collaborations that the theatre demanded between patrons and players, playwrights and printers, playhouses and playgoers.’ (David Scott Kastan). Discuss the significance of staging and performance (either Renaissance or contemporary) of TWO or more plays studied this term.

9.       Give an account of the ways in which film adaptations may change our understanding of Shakespeare’s plays.

10.   Discuss the relationship between history and tragedy in Shakespeare’s plays.

Students are advised that material used in one assignment must not be re-used in another. This means that you should not use the same text as the central text in more than one exam question or assignment, either within or between units. You may refence and cite texts you have used previously, but without repeating the same material and you must not repeat the same texts as your main texts.

Do NOT answer the same essay question in the portfolio and final essay submission.

Learning Outcome 4: contextualize Shakespearean and Renaissance works in terms of the cultural and social ideas of their production and reception

Work must be submitted by 21.00 on the day of the deadline. Work submitted after this time will be counted late. We STRONGLY recommend that you begin your upload by 20.30 at the latest. (It is a very good idea to aim to submit by 12.00 midday, so that support is available from the Student Hub should you encounter difficulties.)

Please see the Assessment FAQs for further guidance on electronic submission:

http://www2.mmu.ac.uk/hlss/about-us/student-support/english-assessment-toolkit-faqs

http://www2.mmu.ac.uk/hlss/about-us/student-support/english-assessment-toolkit-faqs/

Additional sources of support available to English students are detailed in the English Department ‘Sources of Support’ resource at the top of your unit Moodle area:

http://www2.mmu.ac.uk/hlss/about-us/student-support/english-sources-of-support/

Further, generic guidance on assessments in the English Department is provided in the English Department ‘Assessment FAQs’, at the top of the unit Moodle area:

http://www2.mmu.ac.uk/hlss/about-us/student-support/english-assessment-toolkit-faqs/

All student work is moderated internally, by a member of the English team, and externally, by our external examiners (whose details can be found on Moodle BA English). The Moderation Map, available in the ‘Assessment Toolkit’, shows the journey taken by your assignment once you submit it. The University is a degree-awarding body, which means that the processes of University examination and moderation are far more intensive than in secondary or further education, so we ask that you are patient in awaiting your grade and feedback, which we will always aim to deliver promptly within the timescale specified by the MMU commitment: four calendar weeks, with the addition of University closure days where the period falls over the Christmas holiday.

http://www2.mmu.ac.uk/hlss/about-us/student-support/english-assessment-toolkit-faqs/