The paper should be approximately five
pages (or 1500 words) long. It should be
double-spaced, in 12-point font, with default Word margins.
The assignment asks you to analyze a topic
related to Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus.
Write clearly and concisely. Be
informative, Use direct language. Do not mince words. Do not use vague
language. Here is a useful and informative piece of writing:
Remember that you are writing an essay or
article. Your job is to be interesting, engaging, insightful, and informative.
Your paper should have a title that gives
your reader an idea of what the paper will be about.
In the first paragraph of your paper,
you should inform your reader about your subject. By the last sentence of the
first paragraph you should have stated a thesis.
You must use quotations in your essay to
demonstrate your argument. You should quote poetry as poetry, in verse form
(following Shakespeare’s line endings). It should be set apart from the double
spaced lines of your own prose, and you should not add quotation marks unless
they are already present in the text you are quoting. It should look like this:
A craftier Tereus, cousin, hast thou met,
And he hath cut those pretty fingers
off,
That could have better sew’d than Philomel.
O, had the monster seen those lily
hands
Tremble, like aspen-leaves, upon a
lute,
And make the silken strings delight
to kiss them,
He would not then have touch’d them
for his life!
Or, had he heard the heavenly harmony
Which that sweet tongue hath made,
He would have dropp’d his knife, and
fell asleep
As Cerberus at the Thracian poet’s
feet.
Come, let us go, and make thy father
blind;
For such a sight will blind a
father’s eye:
You should introduce quotations by providing enough context for the
reader to understand what is going on and what point the quotation is there
to make in your essay.
Don’t mention “the reader” or “the
audience” unless you have some particular reason to do so. For example, if you
think modern audiences would react differently than Elizabethan audiences might
have, you might want to mention that. If the audience of the play knows
something that the characters in the play don’t, a matter of dramatic irony
that affects how the play works upon its audience, you might want to mention
that.
In general, one doesn’t need to mention
“the reader” or “the audience.”
Your paper should be about developing
ideas. Don’t write a historical or biographical
account of Shakespeare. I don’t need to read that Shakespeare was born
in 1564 or that he is now considered the leading Elizabethan playwright. I don’t need an account of the publishing
history of Titus Andronicus (unless you really have something
interesting to say about the differences between the two quartos and the folio
versions.)
Don’t toss off facile judgmental language:
“Shakespeare is a brilliant playwright,” ”Titus Andronicus is a
fascinating play.”
Have a thesis. It should be complex. It
should be an idea that you can develop over the course of your paper. This is
not a thesis:
Aaron the Moor is a fascinating character.
This might be a thesis:
Aaron the Moor is complex because he is a
villain who has engaging qualities, a victim as well as a victimizer.
Shakespeare makes him both an embodiment of negative racial stereotypes; he
violent, hyper-sexualized, and malicious without conscience. Yet he is also a character whose
intelligence, wit, and love of his child also makes make his attractive.
You may use secondary sources, but this
paper is really about you engaging directly with the play. You need to take an idea—which can be yours
or that of a critic such as Emma Smith—then find the places in the play that
enable you to demonstrate the ideas from the text.
I want to see that you can pull out the
nuances of the script, see how the language conveys complex meaning by tone,
diction, metaphor, and context. What do particular scenes and speeches say
about the play and about the characters it presents?
Some possible topics:
1) You might enlarge on any of the points
Emma Smith makes in her lecture. You can begin such a paper by quoting from the
podcast, then explain how you want to disagree with, modify, or amplify the
point she is making.
2) I have given you materials that discuss
the theory of tragedy in terms of Aristotle’s Poetics and the Rota Fortunae.
In what ways does Shakespeare follow or depart from Aristotle’s precepts for
tragedy? How does this, in your opinion,
change the quality of the play—make it less or more engaging, entertaining,
challenging, moving, or educational?
3)
You can focus on a particular character, and ask a specific question of
that character. Is Titus heroic and admirable? Are military bravery and prowess
his chief virtues, or does he have other qualities we admire? (Do we admire his
ability to suffer in a particular way, to express his grief well?) Does he change over the course of the play?
Does he become wiser, more likeable? If
so, where would we think it occurs?
4) What is Lavinia’s role in the play? How does the play treat women? Does it treat
women as objects of desire? Does it bifurcate women into saints and whores?
5)
Emma Smith argues that tragedy questions the limits of human autonomy,
the degree to which people can shape their own fates. There are many ways to
ask whether human autonomy is limited in Titus…
6) Aaron (the Moor). Racism in the play? Is the play racist? Does it reinforce racial
stereotypes? Does the play question racial stereotypes? Is Aaron a victim as
well as villain?
7)
What does the play have to say about government, and/or justice? Are
good government and providing justice the same thing?
8) Murder, revenge, martyrdom, and ritualized
killing.
9) Pursue the literary illusions in the
play, to Virgil and to Ovid. What seems the point of a play in which characters
pattern their behavior after literary models?
USE ONLY THE TEXT AS YOUR SOURCE
YOU CAN USE THIS PODCAST AS EXTERNAL SOURCE : https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/titus-andronicus
