Macbeth Seminar Questions

What do you make of the three weird sisters who foretell Macbeth’s future?  

In what ways do you understand the witches “fair is foul and foul is fair” them?

How are the roles of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are reversed in the second half of the play? 

Some have argued that Lady Macbeth is the most interesting and complex character in the play. To what extent do you agree with the view that the play would not exist without her?

How does Lady Macbeth respond to Macbeth’s furor (madness)?

What do you make of the employment of "new born babe" imagery employed by both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth? See esp. when LM says, "I have given suck, and know / How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me. / I would, while it was smiling in my face, / Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums / And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn / As you have done to this."


What does the fact that only Macbeth can see the ghost of Banquo suggest about the nature of the ghost? How does this scene relate back to the 'dagger of the mind' scene in 2.1?

Why does Macbeth visit the witches again?

Is the story of Macbeth a tragedy? How so? (you may have to refer to definitions of tragedy)

Is Macbeth a story of evil and wickedness?

What type of image of manhood does Macbeth present? In what way does the play

raise questions about the nature of a warrior as a hero?

How far do you think Macbeth is driven by his own ambition?
How far he is dominated by his wife's ambition?
How far he is influenced by the witches?

Antony and Cleopatra

Antony and Cleopatra. William Shakespeare. Ed. David Bevingon. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2005.

Anthony and Cleopatra is a romantic tragedy about the relationship between Mark Antony and the Cleopatra, the famous Queen of Egypt.

The play was performed in 1606/7 and was first published in the First Folio (1623).

Shakespeare’s primary source material was North’s translation of Plutarch’s Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans (1579), Samuel Daniel’s tragedies Cleopatra (1594) and The Tragedy of Philotas (1604-5). 

Robert Louis Stevenson, “After Reading Antony and Cleopatra”

As when the hunt by holt and field 

Drives on with horn and strife, 

Hunger of hopeless things pursues 

Our spirits throughout life.  

The sea's roar fills us aching full 

Of objectless desire – 

The sea's roar, and the white moon-shine, 

And the reddening of the fire.  

Who talks to me of reason now? 

It would be more delight 

To have died in Cleopatra's arms 

Than be alive to-night. 

Seminar Questions: 

Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen said that Antony and Cleopatra is Shakespeare's most beautiful play: "Speech after speech soars like music while being grounded in precision of image." (p. 12, William Shakespeare: Antony and Cleopatra, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). 
What do you make of the speeches in the play? How does the language, tone and topic of A & C compare to Titus Andronicus?


In what way does Shakespeare contrast the ideals of both Egypt and Rome?

        

“Cleopatra and Shakespeare alike exploit with gusto the notion that men commonly find women mysterious.” (Bevington, 20). To what extent is gender performed in Antony and Cleopatra?

Discuss the different models of governing exhibited by Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra. To what extent do each of these characters embrace Machiavelli's political theory?

Why is Caesar insistent that Antony marry his sister Octavia?

What kind of spectacle does the revelry and drunkenness on board Pompey’s ship induce? How is the irony of monarchical power undermined in this scene?

Essay Questions: 

“Antony and Cleopatra has proved extraordinarily difficult for its leading actors. It is probably fair to say that there have been no immortal performances of this play” (Bevington, 57). Is there something about the way Shakespeare combined an emphasis on the outward appearances of the leading characters and their intellectual / emotional behaviour and language that prevents modern actors from fulfilling these roles?

Both politics and gender are acts of performance in Antony and Cleopatra. Discuss.

Mary Sidney’s The Tragedie of Antonie (1592) is a translation of the Senecan tragedy by the French author Robert Garnier, Antonie. Sidney’s play written in blank verse and is a model for Daniel’s Cleopatra, Thomas Kyd’s Cornelia (1594), Fulke Greville’s Mustapha (c. 1599). Examine the relationship between gender and politics in a close examination of two or more of these Senecan-inspired plays (you must include Titus). Excerpts from these plays can be found on Luminarium.org.

How does Shakespeare make use of or adapt the material found in North’s translation of Plutarch’s Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans (1579)? (Can be found here: http://perseus.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/JC/plutarch.north.html).

How do Shakespeare’s other Roman plays make use of contemporary and classical source materials?

Short Bibliography (there are many good resources on Shakespeare’s plays):

This website has a list of sources and resources related to the play
(including t.v. and film adaptation information): http://pages.unibas.ch/shine/linkstragantonywf.html
 

Barroll, J. Leeds, "Antony and Cleopatra and Pleasure," JEGP 57 (1958), 708-20.

Berek, Peter, "Doing and Undoing: The Value of Action in Antony and Cleopatra," ShQ 32 (1981), 295-304.

Coppedge, Walter R., "The Joy of the Worm: Dying in Antony and Cleopatra," Renaissance Papers (1988), 41-50.

Fitz, L.T., "Egyptian Queens and Male Reviewers: Sexist Attitudes in Antony and Cleopatra Criticism," ShQ 28 (1977), 297-316.

Harris, Jonathan Gil, "'Narcissus in thy Face': Roman Desire and the Difference it fakes in Antony and Cleopatra," ShQ 45 (1994), 408-25.

Hillman, Richard, " Antony, Hercules, and Cleopatra: 'The Bidding of the Gods' and 'The Subtlest Maze of All,'" ShQ 38 (1987), 442-51.

Jones, Gordon, "The 'Strumpet's Fool' in Antony and Cleopatra," ShQ 34 (1984), 62-8.

Nevo, Ruth, "The Masque of Greatness," Shakespeare Studies 4 (1968), 111-28.

Rose, Paul L., "The Politics of Antony and Cleopatra," ShQ 20 (1969), 379-89.

Simmons, J.L., "The Comic Pattern and Vision in Antony and Cleopatra," ELH 36 (1969), 493-510.

Singh, Jyotsna, "Renaissance Antitheatricality, Antifeminism, and Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra," Renaissance Drama n.s. 20 (1989), 99-122.

Worthen, W.B., "The Weight of Antony: Staging 'Character' in Antony and Cleopatra," SEL 26 (1986), 295-308.

"Looking for Richard" Seminar Questions

Playing Shakespeare. Vol. 1. Dir. John Carlaw. Perf. John Barton, Ben Kingsley, Ian McKellen. ITV Productions Ltd., 1984, 2009. DVD.

Looking for Richard. Dir. Al Pacino. Perf. Al Pacino, Estelle Parsons, Aidan Quin, Winona Ryder, Kevin Spacy. Fox Searchlight Pictures, 1996. DVD.

Seminar Discussion Questions:  

In Looking for Richard Al Pacino offers an intense rumination on Shakespeare's significance and relevance to the modern world. In his role as both director and actor Pacino’s interviews and in-depth analysis of Shakespeare’s Richard III explore the tensions between the play as text and the play as entertainment. Discuss.

"You don't need to understand every single word that's said, as long as you get the gist of what's going on. Just trust it and you'll get it," says Pacino (Looking for Richard). To what extent is Pacino’s statement true about performing Shakespeare?

"He helped us and instructed us in the art of feeling." (Annoymous street-person) Pacino notes, "by juxtaposing the day-to-day life of the actors and their characters with ordinary people, we attempted to create a comic mosaic - a very different Shakespeare. Our main goal with this project is to reach an audience that would not normally participate in this kind of language and world." Does Looking for Richard address the issue of Shakespeare’s relevance today in a satisfactory way?

General Seminar Materials

Some useful resources:

Callaghan, Dympna. Shakespeare without women : representing gender and race on the Renaissance stage. New York: Routledge, 2000.

Korda, Natasha. Shakespeare's domestic economies : gender and property in early modern England. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002.

Montrose, Louis. The Purpose of Playing: Shakespeare and the Cultural Politics of the Elizabethan Theatre. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.

As you read the plays this semester I want you to ask yourself  the questions below. You should keep a little journal for these responses to see how, if at all, your response to Shakespeare changes throughout the semester.

We will talk about your responses in the first 15 minutes of each class.  These are general questions and can be adapted as you see fit. You should write your answers down so that you can use them later when you write your essays.

How do the changed modes of presentation contribute to, and indeed arise out of, changed perceptions of the Shakespeare-text?

How does this play work?

What do the performances we watch with modern actors have to say about the original 16^th or 17^th century text? Is it fair to the text?

Is this play relevant?

"The Winter's Tale" Seminar Worksheet

Students can view the seminar questions and a bibliography for "The Winter's Tale" here.