DRAMA TERMS

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Drama is a literary composition involving conflict, action crisis and atmosphere designed to be acted by players on a stage before an audience. This definition may be applied to motion picture drama as well as to the traditional stage.

Apply these questions to a recent movie you have seen or a radio or television drama,

Conflict

1. What did the leading character want?
2. What stood in his way? (People - environment- personality, etc,)
3. What was the high point of tension or the crisis? (This is where the leading character must make a crucial decision that will effect the outcome of the play.)

Character analysis

1. Are the characters true to life or are they types or caricatures?
2. How is the character revealed?
3. What is the driving force of each leading character?
4. If a character changes, are the causes convincing and true to life?

Setting

1. Are the sets appropriate?
2. Are they attractive?
3. Are they authentic?

Critical standards useful for drama, novel, motion pictures:

1. What is the chief emphasis (ideas, character, atmosphere)?
2. What was the purpose? (entertainment, humour, excitement)?
3. Is it realistic or romantic?
4. Does it show life as it really is or distort life?
5. Does it present any problem of human relationship?
6. Does it glamorise life and present an artificial happy ending?

Types of Drama:

1. Tragedy -- In general, tragedy involves the ruin of the leading characters. To the Greeks, it meant the destruction of some noble person through fate, To the Elizabethans, it meant in the first place death and in the second place the destruction of some noble person through a flaw in his character. Today it may not involve death so much as a dismal life, Modern tragedy often shows the tragedy not of the strong and noble but of the weak and mean,
2. Comedy -- is lighter drama in which the leading characters overcome the difficulties which temporarily beset them
3. Problem Play -- Drama of social criticism discusses social, economic, or political problems by means of a play.
4. Farce -- When comedy involves ridiculous or hilarious complications without regard for human values, it becomes farce.
5. Comedy of Manners -- Comedy which wittily portrays fashionable life.
6. Fantasy -- A play sometimes, but not always, in comic spirit in which the author gives free reign to his fantasy, allowing things to happen without regard to reality.
7. Melodrama -- Like farce, melodrama pays almost no attention to human values, but its object is to give a thrill instead of a laugh. Often good entertainment, never any literary value.

Types of Drama of Historical Interest:

1. Medieval mystery plays -- dealt with Bible stories and allegorical mysteries.
2. Chronicle plays -- dealt directly with historical scenes and characters.
3. Masques -- were slight plays involving much singing and dancing and costuming. They were usually allegorical.

Drama is the most dependent of art forms -- director, actors, scene and costume designers must interpret before the audience does.

The Place of the Actor

1. The player should respect his play, his part, his fellow players, and his audience.
2. He should have imagination enough to create character for us instead of merely exploiting his own personality.
3. He should have a technical equipment in his 'voice, facial expression, bodily poise, gesture, and by-play that enables him to project the character as he conceives it.

OTHER TERMS:

1. Allusion - an indirect reference by casually mentioning something that is generally familiar (In literature we find many allusions to mythology, the Bible, history, etc.)

2. Aside - Lines whispered to the audience or to another character on stage (not meant to be heard by all the characters on stage)

3. Catastrophe - the final event in a drama (a death in a tragedy or a marriage in a comedy)

4. Comedy - A light play with a happy ending

5. Comic Relief - A bit of humour injected into a serious play to relieve the heavy tension of tragic events

6. Crisis or Climax - the turning point in the plot (This occurs when events develop either for or against the main character and a crucial decision must be made.)

7. Dramatic Irony - occurs when the audience knows something that the character on stage is not aware.

8. Foreshadow - Lines that give a hint or clue to future events (It doesn't tell the future but hints at it.)

9. Irony -

• A method of expression in which the ordinary meaning of the word is opposite to the thought in the speaker's mind
• Events contrary to what would be naturally expected

10. Metaphor - an implied comparison between two different things; identifying a person or object as the thing to which it is being compared.
Example: 'It is the East and Juliet is the sun.' - 'tossed on the sea of life'

11. Metonymy - a figure of speech whereby the name of a thing is substituted for the attribute which it suggests. Example: The pen (power of literature or the written word) is mightier than the sword (force).

12. Nemesis - agent of retribution (the person who punishes)

13. Personification - giving the quality of life to inanimate things

14. Poetic Justice - The operation of justice in a play with fair distribution of rewards for good deeds and punishment for wrong doing

15. Simile - an expressed comparison between two different things using 'like' or 'as' - Example: 'eyes twinkle like stars' - 'as loud as the roaring sea'

16. Soliloquy - A single character on stage thinking out loud (a way of letting the audience know what is in the character's mind)

17. Tragedy - A serious play having an unhappy ending

18. Tragic Flaw - A character trait that leads one to his/her own downfall or destruction

Romeo and Juliet Act Three (study guide)

 

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ACT THREE - SCENE ONE
(This scene marks the climax of the drama.)

1. Tybalt, still enraged at Romeo's intrusion at the Capulet's ball, is determined to fight, but Romeo refuses. Why?

2. How does Mercutio get involved, and what happens to him?

3. How does Romeo react to this?

4. What decree does the Prince make?

5. Explain how this scene serves as the climax or turning point of the drama. (Think of all that has happened between Romeo and Juliet so far.)

ACT THREE - SCENE TWO

1. Complete this paraphrase of Juliet's soliloquy (lines 1-31)

Hurry up, _______ and set so that night will come and _____________ can leap into my ________ Lovers don't need _____________ to make love. If __________ is blind it best agrees with _____________. Come on, night, so I can learn to _________ the love game. I'll _________ to Romeo, and we'll both lose our ______________. Cover my blushing ____________ until I grow __________ enough to act out my true __________. Come night. Come _____________, and lie with me this night. Give me my ________ and when he ___________ cut him up into little ___________, and he will light the ________ so fine that all the _________ will be on love with ____________ and not ______. Oh, I have taken the _______________ vow, yet I am still a virgin. it's like a child who has new _______, but is not allowed to __________ them.

2. Explain the dramatic irony in the beginning of this scene.

3. How does Juliet react to the nurse's news?

4. What does Juliet plan to do with the cords? (See lines 132-137)

5. How does the nurse console her?

ACT THREE - SCENE THREE

1. How does Romeo react to the news of his banishment?

2. Complete this paraphrase of Friar Laurence's speech (lines 108-154).

Stop! - Are you a ______? You look like a man but you cry like a ___________ and act like a ___________. I'm surprised at you! I thought you were a better man than that. You already killed _____________. Will you now kill _____________ and by doing so kill __________ who loves you? What are you _____________ about? You're alive aren't you? ________ on you! You are a _________ to your manhood, trying to _________ yourself after vowing to love and _________ Juliet. Your ________ that should guide your body and your love is ________ like a _______ soldier trying to load his _______ and kills himself instead of the enemy. What's wrong with you ________? __________ is alive. There, you are lucky. ________ would have _______ you but instead you killed him. There, you are lucky. The Prince could have ________ you to ______, but he only _________ you. There, you are lucky. You have much to be ___________ for, but instead of counting your _________, you sulk and ________ like a spoiled child. Stop sulking, and go to your __________ and ____________ her. But don't __________ too long, or you won't be able to get pass the __________ to go to _________ where you can stay until I can tell your __________ about your ___________, reconcile them, and get the _________ to _________ you so you can come back and live happily. Go, __________ and tell ________ to go to bed early because ______ is coming.

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ACT THREE - SCENE FOUR

1. How does the action in this scene complicate matters even further?

2. How does Capulet's attitude now differ from his attitude when Paris first came to ask for Juliet's hand in marriage?

3. Explain the dramatic irony in this scene.

ACT THREE - SCENE FIVE

Day breaks, and the two lovers must part after consummating their wedding vows. Juliet is very reluctant to have Romeo leave her and does not want to admit that it is morning. Finally Romeo leaves and Juliet's mother comes to her chamber. Their conversation about Tybalt's death has Juliet speaking in ambiguous terms.

1. Explain the paradoxical phrases in lines 94-103.

2. How does Capulet react to Juliet's refusal to marry Paris?

3. What advise does the nurse give Juliet?

4. What does Juliet decide to do?

5. Find one example in act three of each of the following literary devices: (EXTRA CREDIT)

1. Allusion
2. Simile

3. Apostrophe
4. Oxymoron

5. Conceit
6. Metonymy

7. Personification
8. Pun

9. Foreshadow
10. Irony

Macbeth by William Shakespeare (Act Four - Study Guide)

 

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ACT FOUR - SCENE 1:

Macbeth seeks counsel from the weird sisters who show him a series of apparitions:

1. Explain the message given to Macbeth by each of the following apparitions.

• First Apparition: an armed Head
• Second Apparition: A bloody Child
• Third Apparition: a Child crowned, with a tree in his hand

2. How does this make Macbeth feel?

Finally the witches show Eight Kings, the last with a glass in his hand; GHOST OF BANQUO following.

3. Explain the irony in the following statement by Macbeth;

"Infected be the air whereon they ride
And damn'd all those that trust them! ..."

4. What does Macbeth decide to do next?

ACT FOUR - SCENE 2: Macduff's Castle

Lady Macduff converses with he son.  She is upset because her husband has gone off to England leaving his family unprotected.

1. What happens to them?

ACT FOUR SCENE 3:

Malcolm, King Duncan's son, and Macduff are discussing plans to return to Scotland with an army to overthrow Macbeth..

Ross enters with news of Duncan's family.

1. How does Macduff reponde to this news?

2. What does he vow to do?

Writing a speech

 

It is important to remember that speeches are intended to be spoken aloud to an audience. There are many features that the most successful speeches share. Some of them are listed below. After you have read and understood these points, go through the printed speech with a partner and find examples of each of these techniques:

· Sense of audience. The speaker must show an awareness of the audience by speaking to them directly, trying to engage their interest, and drawing them into the subject. Look for use of the word ‘you’, as well as indications of the type of people in the audience e.g. school children, retired people, parents.

· Clear introduction. How does the opening paragraph introduce the speaker and the subject? How does it capture the audience’s attention?

· Enumeration of points. The listener’s brain copes best with information that is presented in clear ‘parcels’. Stating the number of points that you will explain alerts the brain to respond to them.

· Rhetorical questions. The speaker asks the audience a question that does not need to be answered. This introduces some variety, and stimulates the listener to respond to the argument. This is a technique that should not be over-used; too many questions without answers will not convince your audience – they simply make you look uncertain.

· Statistics. Statistics used for support can add weight to an argument, but again it is important not to over-use them. A long list of numbers is boring and can be confusing.

· Memorable phrases or slogans. The audience will forget much of what you say, so you should provide them with some easy to remember phrases that summarise your points. Politicians do this so that short extracts from their speeches will fit impressively into brief news bulletins. Some speeches have become famous for only one or two sentences.

· Humour. Making the audience laugh will wake them up and perhaps make them like and support you. The audience is also likely to remember something entertaining.

· Language features. As in other forms of writing, devices such as alliteration, metaphor and simile can be used to create a more powerful effect, and especially to create a visual image in the minds of the audience.

· Strong conclusion. End your speech with a summary that will fix your ideas firmly in the audience’s mind.

The most important thing is to have something interesting to say. Work out your ideas in a plan before you write the speech.

MIST CIS ACCREDITATION

Discover how MIST is doing with the Council of International Schools (CIS) Accreditation process - Iris, Besarta and Silvester in Year 11 are representing the student body on different committees INCLUDING the Self Study Steering Committee. These are highly responsible assignments and we wish them all the best.

Visit our MIST CIS web site Blog at this link to follow along as we prepare for our Site Visit in the spring of 2009.

How well did Shakespeare know history?

As Shakespeare's history plays are performed in their entirety by the RSC, Shakespeare aficionado Steve Tomkins offers his own assessment of their meaning and significance.

Romeo and Juliet is one of the most famous love stories of all, its popularity enhanced by modern revivals on film and stage.

Macbeth, Hamlet, King Lear and Othello are among Shakespeare's other high-profile works, fixtures on school reading lists and often being reinvented.

But his history plays are less well known, although a unique staging of them by the Royal Shakespeare Company hopes to address that.

Over four days, they are being performed in their entirety, in the order they were written, first in Stratford-upon-Avon and then in London.

They offer an Elizabethan perspective on the Middle Ages, but is it an accurate one?

Which plays belong to Shakespeare's history cycle?

The cycle starts with Richard II, followed by Henry IV parts 1 and 2. Next we have Henry V and then - not unpredictably - Henry VI which comes in no fewer than three parts. It ends with Richard III. Bloody sequels eh?

Are these all the history plays Shakespeare wrote?

Not quite. We have King John from before this lot and Henry VIII from afterwards. But these eight form a continuous narrative, from 1398 to 1484.

What story do they tell?

It's quite long. But to give you the headlines:

THE HISTORY CYCLE

1377: Richard II

1399: Henry IV (two part-play)

1413: Henry V (pictured)

1422: Henry VI (three parts)

1461: Edward IV (no play)

1483: Edward V (no play)

1483-1485: Richard III

Richard II is a terrible king, unjust, foolish, grasping. But not hunchbacked - that's Richard III. Richards are bad, Henrys are good. Richard exiles his cousin Henry Bolingbroke, then seizes all his lands etc when his father dies. So Henry comes home, seizes them back and while he's at it deposes Richard and becomes Henry IV.

Which brings us on to Henry IV parts 1 and 2.

OK, Henry IV's reign suffers from rebellions. It's a kind of curse because he rebelled against Richard. Also his son Hal rebels by falling in with the debauched robber Falstaff. But Hal proves himself in the fighting, turns his back on Falstaff and becomes Henry V.

Which brings us to Henry V the play.

Henry V is the one about the battle of Agincourt. Henry claims the throne of France, is insulted by a gift of tennis balls and invades. After mercilessly suppressing a conspiracy, and a rousing speech or two, he leads the English to victory, marries the princess and leaves his son Henry VI king of England and France. Ah, those were the days.

Then we have Henry VI parts 1 to 3.

Henry VI is about the Wars of the Roses. The French, led by Joan of Arc, start reclaiming the land that Henry V took and the English counter-attack is hampered when the nobility is split by a quarrel between York and Lancaster. York rebels against the king and after countless battles and lots of chopping and changing, Edward IV of York becomes king. His brother Richard kills the imprisoned Henry VI.

And finally Richard III.

In his own play, Richard declares himself to be a very bad sort. His has his older brother killed for starters. When Edward IV dies, he is named Protector of young Edward V, but Richard has him imprisoned, gets himself crowned, then disposes of the lad. Henry Tudor (Lancs) invades, and kills Richard after he finds himself in a tight spot for a horse. Henry marries Elizabeth of York and the Tudor peace reigns.

If that's the plot, what's the subplot?

Richard II dramatises the dilemma of what to do with a bad king. Monarchy is hereditary and ordained by God, rebellion overturns the natural order. But isn't it justified when Richard is simply intolerable? The answer is: It's a tricky one.

There's more realpolitik in Henry IV. Hal's friendship with Falstaff is at the heart of both plays, but when he becomes king he has to coldheartedly dump him. What makes a good man makes a bad king.

What about Henry V? A trumpet blast of jingoism?

It is one to be wheeled out in time of war, yes. And the second tetralogy (Henry VI parts 1-3 and Richard III were in fact written first) is famously a pretty good bit of PR for the Tudor dynasty. It shows not only how it brought peace after decades of civil war, but also that the king it overthrew was an evil, ugly, child-murdering hunchback. Rather than God's anointed sovereign.

It doesn't sound completely free of spin. Just how historical are the histories?

I'm getting a bit out of my depth here. But Professor McLuskie of the Shakespeare Institute at Birmingham University tells me they're "as true as they could be at the time". The plays are all based on the Tudor chronicler Holinshed, but there was an alternative tradition, especially about Richard III, that Shakespeare ignored. "Holinshed's version was already controversial, and Shakespeare took clear line on that controversy."

Any dinner party trivia to add?

Richard III is very long, Shakespeare's longest after Hamlet. Richard II is Shakespeare at his most poetic, full of symbolism and almost entirely in verse.

Want famous quotations? "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown" is from Henry IV Part 2. "The winter of our discontent" and "A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!" are, as you know, the words of Richard III. And Shakespeare's most patriotic moment, John of Gaunt's "This sceptred isle" speech from Richard II, is, if you keep listening to the end, a complaint about bad government.

A final thought?

This cultural bonanza truly is an ever-relevant study of power, politics and human life, is it not?

Read this and other interesting article on the BBC web site.

The Weird Sisters Prophesy Blood From a Dance Floor

By MATT ZOLLER SEITZ

Published: July 6, 2007

For four centuries William Shakespeare’s plays have been reinvented to fit contemporary sensibilities. But few recent efforts can match the Australian writer and director Geoffrey Wright’s brutal and thrilling new version, which envisions the thane of Cawdor as a longhaired, drug-addled gangster and his poisoned realm as a decadent MTV dreamscape of nymphet witches, smoky nightclubs and point-blank, slow-motion gun battles.

Laudably, though, this “Macbeth” isn’t content to riff on Shakespeare’s short and bracingly violent tragedy. While Mr. Wright’s movie goes to great, often inventive lengths to tell the tale visually, it dutifully preserves great swaths of the playwright’s verse and often ramps down its machine-gun-style editing and jittery handheld camera work to allow sensuous language and the cast’s consistently imaginative, lively performances to take center stage.

Mr. Wright and his co-writer, Victoria Hill — the actress who also plays Lady Macbeth — reimagine the title character as a loyal foot soldier in an urban gang in today’s Melbourne. The film opens with a drug deal that becomes a double-cross and then a bloodbath. Macbeth (Sam Worthington) ruthlessly sets things right, earning a promotion from his boss, the criminal kingpin Duncan (Gary Sweet).

But Macbeth isn’t content because he’s had a vision of something grander, seen in a pill-and-booze-fueled fantasy of three teenage goth chicks whispering prophecies in his ear as they shimmy against him on the foggy dance floor of an empty nightclub. (Macbeth turns on the music and fog machine himself — a neat touch.) Once Lady Macbeth gets into the act, filling her man’s head with dreams of power, the bodies start to pile up.

Mr. Wright — a former film critic whose debut feature, the powerful 1992 skinhead drama “Romper Stomper,” made a rising star of Russell Crowe — isn’t just another would-be Quentin Tarantino, piling on gore and self-referential cuteness. He respects the visual power of killing. When Macbeth and other characters shed blood, the movie insists on showing how physically hard it is to murder a person, how the act corrupts and numbs the perpetrator and how it implicates those who watch (the viewer included). This “Macbeth” is one of the year’s most violent movies, and every crimson drop is justified.

“Macbeth” has been made as a gangster picture before, in the laughably bad Mafia potboiler “Men of Respect,” for instance. Mr. Wright’s version is a huge improvement over that film. The pulsing, club-ready soundtrack, plentiful nudity and frenzied, sometimes pretentiously edited action sequences are clearly intended as bait to broaden the audience beyond Shakespeare buffs, but “Macbeth” is ultimately true to the horror and sadness of Shakespeare’s vision. A cloud of guilt hangs over every cruel act; even the henchmen who kill the wife and son of Macbeth’s chief rival, Macduff (Lachy Hulme), eventually quake with shame over what they’ve done.

But the movie is fun too. Mr. Wright and Ms. Hill know that part of the pleasure of modern-dress Shakespeare is seeing how the adapters are going to depict certain indelible scenes, phrases and images, and their imagination rarely disappoints.

In this telling, the three witches are first glimpsed in the opening scene vandalizing tombstones (a funny pre-emptive strike against critics who might accuse Mr. Wright of despoiling great literature). Lady Macbeth’s “unsex me” monologue is delivered while staring at an empty swing behind her house, a blunt allusion to her barrenness. Macbeth utters “is this a dagger I see before me” in the garden behind his home at night, while staring at a plant’s shadow that vaguely resembles a blade. And Birnam Wood ... well, let’s just say that the “Die Hard” hero, John McClane, would approve.

MACBETH

Now Playing!

Directed by Geoffrey Wright; written by Mr. Wright and Victoria Hill, adapted from the play by William Shakespeare; director of photography, Will Gibson; edited by Jane Usher; music by John Clifford White; production designer, David McKay; produced by Martin Fabinyi; released by Union Station Media and Truly Indie. At the Quad Cinema, 34 West 13th Street, Greenwich Village. Running time: 109 minutes. This film is rated 'R'.

WITH: Sam Worthington (Macbeth), Victoria Hill (Lady Macbeth), Lachy Hulme (Macduff), Steve Bastoni (Banquo), Gary Sweet (Duncan), Chloe Armstrong (First Witch), Kate Bell (Second Witch) and Miranda Nation (Third Witch).

Now ... if we can only find the film we can watch it!!!!!

School Closure Dates / Easter

During March MIST is closed for a number of Friday's this will affect Year 9A, 10 A and B and Year 11 English classes.

March 7th	Teachers Day
March 14th	Spring Day
March 21st	Easter Friday
March 24th	Easter Monday

Merchant of Venice Sample Questions:

Act I, Scenes 1-3
1. Compare and contrast Antonio’s situation in signing the agreement with Shylock, with Portia’s situation of being held bound to her father’s will.

2. Contrast Antonio’s loans to Bassanio with Shylock’s loan to Antonio and Bassanio

Act II, Scenes 1-9
1. What is the relationship—both structurally and thematically—of the Jessica/Lorenzo subplot to the main plots of The Merchant of Venice ?

2. Compare and contrast Morocco’s reasoning during the selection of caskets with Aragon’s speech during the same test.

 

1. Antonio is

• a beggar
• a bard
• a merchant
• a thief

2. Bassanio wants to marry Portia for what reason?

• Because he loves her
• Because he is lonely
• Because she is beautiful
• Because she has money

3. What does Antonio have to do in order for Bassanio to receive money?

• He must promise to convert to Christianity
• He must promise his daughter in marriage
• He must sell some of his ships
• He must pledge his own collateral for the loan

4. What Biblical passage does Shylock quote to defend charging interest on loans?

• The scene of the last supper
• Jacob receiving the striped lambs from his father-in-law
• Pilot whipping Jesus 40 times
• Noah building the ark

5. When Shylock demands a pound of Antonio's flesh as collateral for the loan, what does Antonio think of this deal?

• He claims that he would prefer to have to pay interest on the loan
• He is pleased and remarks that Shylock may someday become a Christian
• He thinks Shylock wants to murder him
• He is mortified and refuses to agree to the loan

6. When the play begins, Antonio and Portia can best be described as:

• corrupt
• happy
• depressed
• ambiguous

7. Who is the merchant of Venice?

• Antonio
• Shylock
• Bassanio
• Portio

8. The charging of interest, or lack thereof, is best represented by what metaphors throughout the play?

• References to inheritance and marriage
• Ships and merchant activities, such as shipping silk and tea
• Three caskets
• Sheep imagery, such as ewes, wethers and fleeces

9. What condition must the Prince of Morocco agree to before he may choose from among the caskets?

• That if he chooses wrong, he will never marry
• That if he chooses wrong, he will give Portia all his wealth and leave forever
• That if he chooses wrong, he will kill himself
• That if he chooses wrong, he will have to marry a woman of Portia's choosing

10. Gobbo arrives with a present for Shylock. What is the present?

• Baubles
• Sweetmeats
• Gold
• Doves

 

• 11. Lancelot leaves Shylock to become whose servant?
  • Jessica
  • Antonio
  • Bassanio
  • Gobbo
• 12. Lorenzo and Jessica do what during the masque?
  • Purchase a monkey and bring it back to Shylock's house
  • They run away from Shylock's house, taking a great deal of gold and valuables with them
  • Become drunk with the other revelers
  • Get into an argument and refuse to speak to one another
• 13. How is Jessica dressed when she runs away from Shylock?
  • In a valuable dress covered with jewels
  • As a queen
  • As a clown
  • As a man
• 14. The Prince of Morocco chooses which casket?
  • Lead
  • Gold
  • Bronze
  • Silver
• 15. The second suitor, the Prince of Aragon, arrives in Belmont and chooses the silver casket. What does the casket reveal?
  • A blinking idiot
  • A skull
  • A miniature portrait of Portia
  • A dagger
• 16. In this play, the failure to marry is analogous to what?
  • castration
  • ineptitude
  • poverty
  • deliverance
• 17. Lancelot and Gobbo mimic what biblical scene when they first meet?
  • David and Goliath
  • Jacob and Esau
  • Adam and Eve
  • Pilot and Jesus
• 18. What is one fundamental difference between Belmont and Venice?
  • Belmont is larger than Venice in absolute landmass
  • Belmont is a commercial center, whereas Venice is an artistic center
  • Belmont has women present, whereas Venice only has men on the streets
  • Belmont represents the middle classes, whereas Venice represents the aristocratic classes
• 19. Shylock delivers his famous monologue, "Hath not a Jew eyes?", to which characters?
  • Solanio and Salerio
  • Jessica and Lorenzo
  • Bassanio and Graziano
  • Portia and Nerissa
• 20. What item(s) does Jessica trade for a monkey?
• A turquoise ring
• A heavy gold chain
• A casket made of silver
• Gold ducats

21. How many ships does Antonio believe he has lost in total?

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4

22. After Bassanio chooses the correct casket, what does Portia give him and tell him never to lose?

• Herself
• Money to take to Antonio
• A ring
• The casket

23. How does Bassanio choose the casket?

• He closes his eyes and points
• He chooses only by looking at the caskets
• He picks randomly
• He reads the inscriptions and likes what the lead casket says

24. Some scholars have interpreted the relationship between Antonio and Bassanio as:

• Homoerotic
• Abusive
• Superficial
• Disingenuous

25. What amount of money does Bassanio offer Shylock to pay off Antonio's debt?

• 2,000 ducats
• 6,000 ducats
• 8,000 ducats
• 10,000 ducats

Merchant of Venice - Background

 

Written sometime between 1596 and 1598, The Merchant of Venice is classified as both an early Shakespearean comedy (more specifically, as a "Christian comedy") and as one of the Bard's problem plays; it is a work in which good triumphs over evil, but serious themes are examined and some issues remain unresolved.

In Merchant, Shakespeare wove together two ancient folk tales, one involving a vengeful, greedy creditor trying to exact a pound of flesh, the other involving a marriage suitor's choice among three chests and thereby winning his (or her) mate. Shakespeare's treatment of the first standard plot scheme center's around the villain of Merchant, the Jewish moneylender Shylock, who seeks a literal pound of flesh from his Christian opposite, the generous, faithful Antonio. Shakespeare's version of the chest-choosing device revolves around the play's Christian heroine Portia, who steers her lover Bassanio toward the correct humble casket and then successfully defends his bosom friend Antonio from Shylock's horrid legal suit.

In the modern, post-Holocaust readings of Merchant, the problem of anti-Semitism in the play has loomed large. A close reading of the text must acknowledge that Shylock is a stereotypical caricature of a cruel, money-obsessed medieval Jew, but it also suggests that Shakespeare's intentions in Merchant were not primarily anti-Semitic. Indeed, the dominant thematic complex in The Merchant of Venice is much more universal than specific religious or racial hatred; it spins around the polarity between the surface attractiveness of gold and the Christian qualities of mercy and compassion that lie beneath the flesh.

Shakespeare Resource Center

Discover the best the web has to offer for your studies in Shakespeare - The Shakespeare Resource Center is your portal to the best the web has to offer:

You'll find here collected links from all over the World Wide Web to help you find information on William Shakespeare. There are millions of pages that reference Shakespeare on the Internet. This site aims to make it a little easier to find your sources. You could also buy a book or something to further your learning experience and help support the site, but that's up to you.

The e-mail policy of the Shakespeare Resource Center is simple: the SRC will not provide answers to questions about homework, paper topics, interpretations, etc. The purpose of this site is to provide links to aid you in your online Shakespeare research; it's not meant to provide you a personal research assistant. But for the most burning questions, why not Ask the Bard?

Orsino's speech on music and love from Twelfth Night is the latest addition to Speech Analysis: Ten Readings.

Ye Olde Contents

Shakespeare's Biography

A brief biography of William Shakespeare, from his baptism to the inscription on his tomb at Holy Trinity in Stratford.

Shakespeare's Works

A summary overview of the four periods of Shakespeare's works, including links to online editions of the plays and Shakespearean criticism.

Shakespeare's Language

Links and a Shakespeare Resource Center guide to the Bard's English—including a searchable glossary. Also includes a new Speech Analysis: Ten Readings section exclusive to the SRC.

Shakespeare's Will

Shakespeare's very own last will and testament, complete with stricken-out passages.

Authorship Debate

Who wrote the works of Shakespeare? Edward de Vere? Francis Bacon? Christopher Marlowe? Information about and links to the opposing points of view.

The Globe Theatre

A brief history of Shakespeare's Globe from its construction in 1598 to the New Globe, completed in 1996 in Southwark.

Elizabethan England

Because you have to understand England and the times in which Shakespeare lived to appreciate fully the literature.

Shakespearean Study

The most valuable online resources you'll find about Shakespeare (besides this site, of course).

Reading List

For further reading about Shakespeare, because most of the best research resources are still only available in print (something or the other about copyright law).

Theatre Companies

Links to selected theatre companies specializing in Shakespeare, because nothing beats seeing a play live.

Other Links

This is where all the Shakespearean links go that don't seem to fit anywhere else on the site.

Macbeth (1971) - The Movie

"Nothing is but what is not." With that ultimate statement of nihilism, Macbeth establishes himself as one of literature's (and cinema's) blackest villains. But what makes him memorable is not just his ambition and bloodlust, but also his conscience and imagination.

Almost immediately we hear of Macbeth's great exploits on the battlefield. However, before Scotland's King Duncan can announce Macbeth's reward for such valour, the three "weird sisters" let Macbeth know that one day he will be king. When Duncan gives Macbeth the title of Thane of Cawdor, he can't help but feel disappointed. Isn't he meant to be king? As played by Jon Finch, Macbeth is intriguingly complex; he is ambitious but, "without the illness that should attend it." Finch gives a convincing performance of a once good man devolving into a paranoid amoral madman.

Macbeth's tragedy is that he is unable to wait and see if "chance may crown me king." The reason is simple, his delightfully wicked wife Lady Macbeth. She knows her husband's greatest hurdle is not the title of king, but his unwillingness to do anything evil to attain it. He is, "too full of the milk of human kindness." Lady Macbeth spends much of her time driving all kindness out of her man by verbally assaulting his manhood. Unfortunately, as portrayed by Francesca Annis, Lady Macbeth seems less sinister than simpering. We never witness her transformation from loving, doting wife to fiendish shrew, so her character is only half-realised.

Polanski creates an imposing, rugged landscape. The castles look as stark as one might imagine those in the13th century to be. Polanski also makes shrewd decisions when rearranging, eliminating and 'embellishing' scenes from Shakespeare's play. "Blood will have blood," he has taken quite literally.

With the single (glaring) exception of the depiction of Lady Macbeth, this is a worthy addition to the Bard's cinematic canon.

Now ... if we can only find the film we can watch it!!!!!

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE - Film Review

Running time: 131 mins
Starring: Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons, Lynn Collins, Joseph Fiennes, Kris Marshall, Mackenzie Crook

Scholars have examined Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice for four hundred years and attempted to understand the anti-Semitism it contains. Was Shakespeare himself an anti-Semite, or was he simply portraying society around him? Michael Radford's sparkling new adaptation makes no attempt to avoid the issue: it is clear from the opening scenes that it will tackle the most unsavoury racial elements of the play head on. The first time we see Shylock he is spat upon by the merchant of the play's title before returning to his segregated Jewish ghetto. The cursory and commonplace way in which this racism is meted out pervades the film, and gives Shylock strong impetus to claim his pound of flesh.

The film also questions another key element concerning Shakespeare's text: is it a comedy, a tragedy, or somewhere in-between? The to-ing and fro-ing of the world's most eligible bachelors to decipher the code of Portia's caskets gives the play a frothy, comical air. But, uniquely in Shakespeare's work, it is counter-balanced with a dark heart in the form of the brutal treatment handed out to Shylock. Radford's own faithful adaptation, set and filmed in Venice itself, gives weight to both and makes a clear distinction between the two. Portia's remote and beautiful castle is softly lit and shimmers on the sea, while Shylock inhabits a grimy, dank and fog-infested city.

The casting of Al Pacino as Shylock is the film's talking point, and it turns out to be an excellent choice. All eyes and ears, his Shylock scours the Rialto for his next deal, is over-protective of his daughter, and sees perfect sense in both his gruesome bond and his eventual claim upon it. This is a restrained, lucid and utterly compelling performance which leads the audience to have nothing but sympathy for the maligned Jew. He is ably assisted by a strong cast with a notable Portia in the shape of Lynn Collins who plays it as sexy and sharp as they come. Jeremy Irons gives a convincing turn in the notoriously difficult title character, and Kris Marshall, best known in England for his role in the sitcom My Family, lifts his Graziano well above the bit-part status that it usually receives.

With outstanding costumes and good use of the Venetian locations (although even more of the city would have been welcome), this is a speedy, witty and entertaining adaptation that merits inclusion in the top level of films based on the Bard's work. If your expectations are of a dull story, obscure setting and difficult dialogue, this Merchant will definitely change your mind.

Now ... if we can only find the film we can watch it!!!!!

Romeo and Juliet by Zeffirelli - 1968

By Roger Ebert
Variety Magazine, 17 September 2000.

Romeo and Juliet

is always said to be the first romantic tragedy even written, but it isn't really a tragedy at all. It's a tragic misunderstanding, scarcely fitting the ancient requirement of tragedy that the mighty fall through their own flaws.

Romeo and Juliet have no flaws, and aren't old enough to be blamed if they did. They die because the pigheaded quarrel of their families, the Montagues and the Capulets. By writing the play, Shakespeare began the shaping of modern drama, in which the fates of ordinary people are as crucial as those of the great.

The great tragedies of his time, including his own, involved kings, emperors, generals. Here, near the dawn of his career, perhaps remembering a sweet early romance before his forced marriage to Anne Hathaway, he writes about teenagers in love.

Romeo and Juliet

has been filmed many times in many ways; Norma Shearer and Leslie Howard starred in the beloved 1936 Hollywood version, and modern transformations include Robert Wise's West Side Story (1961), which applies the plot to Manhattan gang warfare; Abel Ferrara's China Girl (1987) about a forbidden romance between a girl of Chinatown and a boy of Little Italy, and Baz Luhrmann's William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (1996), with California punk gangs of Verona Beach. But the favorite film version is likely to remain, for many years, Franco Zeffirelli's 1968 production.

His crucial decision, in a film where almost everything went well, was to cast actors who were about the right age to play characters (as Howard and Shearer were obviously not). As the play opens, Juliet "hath not seen the change of 14 years", and Romeo is little older. This is the first love for Juliet, and Romeo's crush on the unseen Rosaline is forgotten the moment he sees Juliet at the masked ball. After a well-publicized international search, Zeffirelli cast Olivia Hussey, a 16-years-old from Argentina, and Leonard Whiting, a British 17-year-old.

They didn't merely look their parts, they embodied them in the freshness of their personalities, and although neither was a trained actor, they were fully equal to Shakespeare's dialogue for them; Anthony Holden's new book William Shakespeare: the man behind the Genius contrasts "the beautiful simplicity with which the lovers speak at their moments of uncomplicated happiness" with "the ornate rhetorical flourishes which fuel so much else in the play" - flourishes that Zeffirelli severely pruned, trimming about half a play. He was roundly criticized for his edits, but much that needs describing on the stage can simply be shown onscreen, as when Balthasar is shown witnessing Juliet's funeral and thus does not need to evoke it in a description to the exiled Romeo. Shakespeare, who took such wholesale liberties with his own sources, might have understood.

What is left is what people the play for - the purity of the young lovers' passion, the earthiness of Juliet's nurse, the well-intentioned plans of Friar Laurence, the hot-blooded feud between the young men of the families, the cruel irony of the double deaths. And there is time, too, for many of the great speeches, including Mercutio's poetic evocation of Mab, the queen of dreams.

Hussey and Whiting were so good because they didn't know any better. Another year or two of experience, perhaps, and they would have been too intimidate to play the roles. It was my good fortune to visit the film set, in a small hill town an hour or so outside Rome, on the night when the balcony scene was filmed. I remember Hussey and Whiting upstairs in the old hillside villa, waiting for their call, unaffected, uncomplicated. And when the balcony scene was shot, I remember the heedless energy that Hussey threw into it, take after take, hurling herself almost off the balcony for hungry kisses. (Whiting, balanced in a tree, needed to watch his footing.

Between shots, in the overgrown garden, Zeffirelli strolled with the composer Nino Rota, who had written the music for most of Fellini's films and now simply hummed the film's central theme, as the director nodded. Pasqualino De Santis, who was to win an Oscar for his cinematography, directed his crew quietly, urgently, trying to be ready for the freshness of the actors instead of making them wait for technical quibbles. At dawn, drinking coffee as cars pulled around to take his actors back to Rome, Zeffirelli said what was obvious: that the whole movie depended on the balcony and the crypt scenes, and he felt now that his casting decision had proven itself, and that the film would succeed. It did, beyond any precedent for a film based on Shakespeare, even thought Shakespeare is the most filmed writer in history.

The movie opened in the tumultuous year of 1968, a time of political upheaval around the world, and somehow the story of the star-crossed lovers caught the mood of rebellious young people who had wearied of their elders' wars. "This of all works of literature captures the ardor of young love and youth's aggressive spirit" wrote Anthony Burgess.

Zeffirelli, born in Florence in 1923, came early to the English language through prewar experience hinted at in the loosely autobiographical "Tea with Mussolini" (1999). His crucial early artistic influence was Laurence Olivier's "Henry V" (1945), which inspired him to go into theatre; he has had parallel careers directing plays, films and operas. Before the great success of "Romeo and Juliet", he first visited Shakespeare for the shaky but high-spirited "Taming of the Shrew" (1967), with Burton and Taylor. Later he directed Placido Domingo in "Otello" (1986), Verdi's opera, and directed Mel Gibson in "Hamlet" (1990)

Romeo and Juliet remains the magical high point of his career. To see it again is to luxuriate. It is intriguing that Zeffirelli in 1968 focused on love, while Baz Luhrman's popular version of 1996 focused on violence; something fundamental has changed in films about and for young people, and recent audiences seem shy of sex and love but eager for conflict and action. I wonder if a modern Friday night audience would snicker at the heart-baring sincerity of the lovers.

Zeffirelli got some criticism for purist by daring to show Romeo and Juliet awakening in her bed, no doubt after experiencing physical love. In the play the same dialogue plays in the Capulet's orchard - I am sure as I can be they have just left Juliet's bedchamber, and after all, were they not wed by Friar Laurence and is it not right they should consummate their love before Romeo is banished into exile?

The costumes by Danilo Donati won another Oscar for the film (it was also nominated for best picture and director) and they are crucial to its success; they are the avenue for color and richness to enter the frame, which is otherwise filled with gray and ochre stones and the colors of nature. The nurse (Pat Heywood) seems enveloped in a dry goods sale of heavy fabrics, and Mercutio (John McEnery) comes flying a handkerchief that uses as a banner, disguise and shroud. Hussey dresses, with low bodices and simple patterns, set off her creamy skin and long hair; Whiting is able to inhabit his breeches, blouse and codpiece with the conviction that it is everyday clothing, not a costume.

The costumes and everything else in the film - the photography, the music, above all Shakespeare's language - is so voluptuous, so sensuous. The stagecraft of the twinned death scenes is of course all contrivance; the friar's potion works with timing that is precisely wrong, and yet we forgive the manipulation because Shakespeare has been able to provide us with what is theoretically impossible, the experience of two young lovers each grieving the other's death.

When the play was first staged in London, Holden writes, Shakespeare had the satisfaction of seeing the groundings moved to emotions far beyond anything before known in the theatre. Why? Because of craft and art, yes, but also because Romeo and Juliet were not distant and august figures, not Caesars, Othellos or Macbeths, but a couple of kids in love, as everyone in the theatre had known and everyone in the theatre had been.

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