General Shakespeare Essay Titles

Monarchs, Mothers and Murders in Shakespeare: Drama and Film

Possible General Essay Topics - Semester 2

Your essays should be 1.5/2 spaced, 12 font and conform to either MLA or APA style guidelines. You must include a works cited list, you must fully document all sources used and quoted from. Your essay should be 2,000 words (+/- 10%).

**You may use any of the essay questions on the weekly seminar handouts or pick one from this list.

“All the world’s a stage, / And all the men and women merely players”, says Jacques in As You Like it (II.vii.138-9). To what extent is this summation of drama as a microcosm of the world problematic in today’s global society?

Why are the classical categorizations of tragedy, comedy and romance problematic for describing Shakespeare’s plays?

In what ways are women represented in Shakespeare’s plays and how are domestic relationships and social conditions relevant to any portrayal of women in Shakespeare’s plays then and now?

Discuss the different representations of Shakespeare’s mothers, monarchs and/or murders in the film adaptations we have studied. How does the visual experience compare to reading the soliloquies and set stage-directions?

Reimagining Othello

Mothers, Monarchs and Murders in Shakespeare: Drama and Film

Othello through the ages: Race, Class & Gender

*In 1600 a small group of merchants were granted control over the trade routes to East India. This was the start of the East India Company, which would expand throughout the 17^th century and establish British dominance (British Empire) in the East Indies. India gained independence from its British oppressors in 1947.

Shakespeare’s Othello was first performed at court in 1604. It was first printed in 1622.

The Tragedy of Othello: The Moor of Venice. Dir. Orson Welles. Perf. Orson Welles, Micheál MacLiammóir and Robert Coote. Mercury Productions, Les Films Marceau. 1952.

Othello. Dir. Stuart Burge. Dir. Laurence Olivier, Frank Finlay, Derek Jacobi and Maggie Smith. National Theatre of Great Britain Productions, BHE Films. 1965. Film.

Othello. Dir. Oliver Parker. Perf. Laurence Fishburne, Kenneth Branagh, and Irene Jacob. Castle Rock Entertainment, Dakota Films. 1995. Film.

O. Dir. Tim Blake Nelson. Perf. Mekhi Phifer, Julie Stiles and Josh Hartnett. Chickie the Cop, Daniel Fried Productions, Film Engine. 2001. Film.

Omkara. Dir. Vishal Bhardwaj. Prod. Kumar Mangat. Perf. Ajay Devgan, Saif Ali Khan, Kareena Kapoor. Shemaroo Entertainment PVT. 2006. Film.

**Please bring your texts to class on Monday.

1. Please look up “Bollywood” and write down some characteristics of the genre.

2. Look up the term “caste” and its relevance to Indian culture.

3. How can Cleopatra, Tamora and Desdemona be seen to highlight tensions between politics and gender? What other tensions do these character highlight?

Your in class seminar assignment this week is to provide a close reading of the first two scenes of Act I of Othello. I want you to focus on what these first scenes indicate about the characters (about Othello, Iago, Roderigo, and Brabanzio) The second part of this assignment is to use the film selections that I show to address the question of whether Othello can be made for a modern audience. Are the issues of race, gender and class raised in Shakespeare’s play relevant to a modern audience and how do the different directors address this problem.

Possible Essay Topics:

How can the female body be a bridge for culture, race and religion in Shakespeare’s plays?

Uttar Pradesh, the setting for Bhardwaj’s Omkara, was once the seat of British colonial power. How does Omkara use the postcolonial frame to stage Shakespeare’s Othello?

How do the different directors stage race, gender and class in their film versions of Shakespeare’s Othello?

Bibliography

Alexander, Catherine M. S. and Stanely Wells, ed. Shakespeare and Race. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000.

Burton, Jonathan. “‘A Most Wily Bird’: Leo Africanus, Othello and the Trafficking in Difference.” Loomba and Orkin, Post-Colonial Shakespeares 43-63.

Callaghan, Dympna. “‘Othello Was a White Man’: Properties of Race on Shakespeare’s Stage.” Hawkes, Alternative Shakespeares 2 192-215.

Cartelli, Thomas and Katherine Rowe. “Adaptation as a Cultural Process.” New Wave Shakespeare on Screen. Malden, MA: Polity, 2007. 25-44.

Cartmell, Deborah. “Shakespeare, Film and Race: Screening Othello and The Tempest.” Interpreting Shakespeare on Screen. Basingstoke and London: Macmillan, 2000. 67-93.

Habib, Imtiaz H. “Introduction: Race in Tudor England and Shakespeare: The Historical Ground and the Critical Tools.” Shakespeare and Race. Postcolonial Praxis in the Early Modern Period. Lanham: UP of America, 2000. 1-21.

- - -. “‘Speak of Me as I Am’: T.S. Eliot, Othello’s Subaltern Voice and the Politics of Ethnic Mimesis.” Habib, Shakespeare and Race 121-55.

Ganti, Tejaswini. Bollywood: A Guidebook to Popular Hindi Cinema. New York, NY: Routledge, 2004.

Jackson, Russell, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Film. Cambridge, et al.: Cambridge UP, 2000.

Jones, Nicholas. “A Bogus Hero: Welles’s Othello and the Construction of Race.” Shakespeare Bulletin 23.1(2005): 9-28.

Loomba, Ania, and Martin Orkin. “Introduction: Shakespeare and the Post-Colonial Question.” Post-Colonial Shakespeares. Ed. Ania Loomba and Martin Orkin. New York: Routledge, 1998. 1.19.

(This collection has many useful essays).

Loomba, Ania. “Outsiders in Shakespeare’s England.” The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare. Ed. Margareta de Grazia and Stanley Wells. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2001. 146-66.

-----. “Shakespeare and Cultural Difference.” Hawkes, Alternative Shakespeares 164-91.

-----. Shakespeare, Race, and Colonialism. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2002.

Newman, Karen. “‘And Wash the Ethiop White’: Femininity and the Monstrous in Othello.” Fashioning Femininity and English Renaissance Drama. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1991. 71-93.

Singh, Jyotsna. “Post-Colonial Criticism.” Wells and Cowen Orlin, Oxford Guide 492-507.

Rosenthal, Daniel. “Omkara.” 100 Shakespeare Films. Forew. Julie Taymor. London: British Film Institute, 2007. 188-91.

Stone, James W. “Black and White as a Technique in Orson Welles’s Othello.” Literature Film Quarterly 30.3 (2002): 189-93.