The exam is not yet made up, but I am leaning to one section of quotations which you are to identify and write about (the writing about being more important than the identification, which I presume should be easy).

Two-thirds of the exam will be essays, questions that will be selected from among the following (though the wording may change a bit as I sharpen my own understanding of the questions). Perhaps all of these will appear as options; perhaps only the one or two I want you to write on. But the essays will come from this list, so if you think about these you should be well-prepared. You can bring your books to the exam but not notes (notes in the books are unavoidable and, thus, ok). I want the essays to be as specifically engaged with the texts as is possible, and to engage as many texts as posisble (don't use the same play in more than one answer). I want you to think (not think about what I want you to say) and ideally have some fun with tehse.

1. Neitzsche wrote in Beyond Good and Evil: "Objections, non-sequitors, cheerful distrust, joyous mockery - all are signs of health. Everything absolute belongs in the realm of pathology.' How might this insight be applied to two or three of the plays we have read this term?

2. Think about the printed play. What is it? Is it pre-theatrical (a script or score awaiting performance, which is the 'real' play)? or is it post-theatrical (the printed version of performance, as early texts often claim they offer the play "As it was acted ?). Is it neither: non-theatrical? Or put differently: are performance and print partial and related aspects of the same unity we think about as 'the play', or are they two discrete modes of production producing two incongruent entities that merely happen to share the same name (e.g. Hamlet). Using a play we have read, explore this problem, or, as the English say: 'discuss'

3. In Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet, two plays that, however fluid are Shakespeare's generic understandings, are clearly tragedies, there are moments of broad comedy. Think about these moments. What do they do? Why are they there? How do they participate in the over-all development of the play?

4. A critic has said of Corneille's art that it does not 'utilize' history but 'meditates' on it. (non un théâtre qui utilise l'histoire, mais qui la réfléchit). Would you say the same about Shakespeare's history plays? Discuss Shakespeare's understanding and use of history in at least two of the plays we have read.

5. In a number of plays Shakespeare self-consciously refers to the art of the theatre itself. Think about how and why he alludes to the drama's own enactment in two or three plays we've read? What do these 'meta-theatrical' gestures suggest about the relations of art and life?

6. Why does Shakespeare write sometimes in poetry (usually blank verse) and sometimes in prose? Do the different modes signify differently? Do they define different sensibilities? How are we to attend to these differences? Use examples from at least two different plays of two different genres.

7. Shakespeare is often concerned with an exploration of what a character in a later play calls 'the woman's part'. Certainly he creates memorable roles for women. Think about the role(s) of women in the plays we have read by looking at one comedy, one history, and one tragedy. Think about the plays' relationship to the official culture's own teachings. (You might think also about how the fact that boys played female parts on Shakespeare's stage might matter)

8. What is genre for Shakespeare? Polonius's comic catalogue of the various genres suggests Shakespeare's independence from any prescriptive genre theory. Clearly it is not a mode of taxonomy (the issue isn't really what 'call' the various plays). What then is the function of the different genres in w hich Shakespeare works? How are the constuitive of the individual plays (or even are they?) Looking at one comedy, one tragedy (and perhaps a history) explore how the idea of genre functions.