essay on The Winter’s Tale
Your next short essay is due by the end of the day on Saturday, March 30. It should be between 800
and 1000 words long. Please single space this essay.
For this paper, I would like you to make an argument on one of the three topics listed below. (We will
The main job here is
to analyze passages that prove your thesis. And keep in mind that you are analyzing Shakespeare’s
writing, rather than analyzing the characters as imaginary real people.
1. This play features three female characters who resist domination by patriarhcal authority.
Mentioning all three in your introductory paragraph, please then focus on one of them
(Hermione, Paulina, Perdita) for the rest of your paper. Show us what forms that character’s
resistance and agency take and analyze specific passages that reveal these to us.
2.The Winter’s Tale can be labeled a tragicomic romance, meaning (in short) that it drives towards
tragedy which is then averted through supernatural means. Choose a moment (in 3.2, 3.3, or
4.1) when the play turns from tragic to comic and analyze at least one scene in the first “half”
of the play and at least two from the second to show how the play functions as a tragicomic
romance.
3.As we will discuss in more detail on 3/21 and 3/28, The Winter’s Tale makes the case that theater
is a superior form of media to storytelling and sculpture. Analyzing language from 5.2 and 5.3
explain how Shakespeare makes this case.
Timeline
Wednesday, 3/20: a Discussion post in which you explore one of these approaches
Thursday, 3/21 and 3/28: in-class discussion of the play with attention to these three topics
Saturday, March 30: papers due by 11:59 p.m. (or a little bit later. I will not be awake to
check if they are in before midnight. )
Quoting and citing the plays, etc.
When quoting from essays or books in MLA style, we provide, in brackets, the page number from
which the quote is taken. Citing plays is different: we need to provide (Act.Scene.lines) in parentheses.
And we need to quote poetry as poetry and prose as prose. Let me show you what I mean.
If you are quoting poetry, you must show the line endings as they stand in the play. And if you are
quoting more than three lines, you need to offer the text in block quotes (though I wouldn’t necessarily
offer more than one, or any, block quotes in short essays). It would look like this, in an essay.
Displaying her love and devotion to her husband (over her father), even in the face of Othello’s mental,
emotional disturbance, Desdamona says to Othello,
Why do you weep?
Am I the motive of these tears, my lord?
If haply you my father do suspect
An instrument of this your calling back,
