English W3335x

Shakespeare Mid-Term:  “Fifty Things I Hate About Him; or I Know What You Did in the Summer of 1596”

Due in class: Tuesday, October 23

Answer all of the following. Some involve merely a short answer, others demand some critical agility, some determined research. Where relevant be sure to show the importance of the issue to an understanding of Shakespeare’s works; with a quotation, identify where it appears, but the identification is, of course, less crucial than your indication of how it is important (i.e., its thematic, symbolic, imagistic, etc., centrality) to the play it comes from, though your account of this – and all things -- should be brief. There is no time limit for your work on this (except for your own need for sleep), and you can use any materials you can find. If your source is something other than the Companion, however, provide a short citation. I do, of course, expect that all the research, thought, and writing will be your own.

Be sure you keep a copy of your answers in case there is any question about my receiving them. I can be reached by e-mail <dsk1> if you have questions.

1. Name 5 members of the Lord Chamberlain’s men in 1600.

2. What was the legal status of actors in Shakespeare’s England? What was the legislation that establishes this?

3. Identify: “These violent delights have violent ends.” Is it an iambic pentameter line? Show how the line scans (marking ‘feet’ and indicating stresses)

4. When did the first Globe burn? When was the second Globe built?

5. Why is Comedy of Errors set in Ephesus?

6.  What was the “Homily against Disobedience and Wilfull Rebellion”?

7. Name four theatre companies of the period that Shakespeare never worked for. Name one play that each performed.

8. Name four publishers who published Shakespeare’s plays in quarto before the publication of the folio.

9. What was the name of King James’s wife? Where was she from?

10. What did a quarto playbook usually cost a buyer in, say, 1600? Give source for info.

11. What did it cost to attend the theatre?

12. What is the major contemporary (i.e. Elizabethan not modern) source of information about Elizabethan dramatic costumes?

13. Briefly discuss the mechanisms of dramatic censorship in Shakespeare’s England?

14. At which theatre was Richard II first performed?

15. Write a short paragraph describing the audience, in terms of its social makeup, of the Globe.

16. Write a paragraph describing the usual organization of an Elizabethan professional acting company (that is, how many members, what were the different

17. Name the extant London theatres in 1600.

18. Name the Master of the Revels in 1606.

19. Identify: “I am to the world like a drop of water/ That in the ocean seeks another drop”

20. What was the date of Queen Elizabeth’s death?

21. Define ‘Puritan’

22. What was the earliest publication of Richard III? Who published it?

23. Name the earliest substantial London playhouse. Who owned it?

24.  Define “feminine ending.” Give an example from a play we’ve read.

25. What would a ‘share’ in an acting company cost?

26. What could a playwright expect to be paid for a play script in 1598? Give the source of your info.

27. What actor played the Fool in Twelfth Night when it was first performed?

28. What were the average ages of husbands and wives in first marriages in the first half of the seventeenth-century?

29.  What is a caesura? Give an example from a play we’ve read.

30. Name one ‘boy’ actor.

31. What was the first play that Shakepeare wrote for the Globe Theatre?

32. How wide was the stage at the Fortune theatre?

33. When did actresses first appear in a Shakespeare play?

34. Where was the Rose Theatre? What company played at it?

35. In 1600, what percentage of the English nation was literate? Give the source of your information.

36. What was John Shakespeare’s religion?

37. Where was the Blackfriars Theatre? What company played at it? What was its approximate capacity?

38. What are the Inns of Court?

39. What was the Essex rebellion?                 

40. What was Acts and Monuments?

41. What is the Book of Common Prayer?

42. Identify: “I do mistake my person all this while.”

43. Who was Richard Field?

44. What were sumptuary laws?

45. Identify:” a wilderness of tigers”

46. What translation of the Bible is Shakespeare likely to have read?

47. How many plays were published for the first time in the 1623 Folio?

48. What were the responsibilities of  the “book-keeper” in  an acting company?

49. What is a “bad” quarto?

50. Name the universities of England that existed in Shakespeare’s time?