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You remember the mimetic theory, the purpose of which was to show that_______________

To understand Shakespeare, we need to add to that what is called the PRAGMATIC THEORY which was popularized by a contemporary of Shakespeare called Sir Philip Sidney. It is like the mimetic theory, but it adds something else. A certain critic called Stephen Gasson wrote an essay in which he said that literature and plays should not be read or seen because they could corrupt young minds. Today this is called___________.

Sidney was offended by this and wrote DEFENSE OF POETRY (and drama) in which he said the following:

Other parts of Sidney's work are likewise important for Romeo and Juliet:

Only the poet, disliking to be tied on any such subjugation, lifted up with the vigor of his own imagination does grow in effect into another nature, in making things either better than nature brings forth, or quite anew...gods, Cyclops, Characters in a play, etc. Students who have done the Odyssey should understand to the reference.

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ASSIGNMENT: Please review the figures of speech needed to understand a poem:

simile
metaphor
personification
paradox
irony


These are especially important for Shakespeare’s language.

ASSIGNMENT: Read the material below which contains some of Shakespeare’s sonnets written around the same time as Romeo and Juliet.

A. FIND OUT IN THE LIBRARY WHAT AN ENGLISH SONNET OR THE SHAKESPEAREAN SONNET IS IN TERMS OF ITS STRUCTURE-OR HOW IT IS COMPOSED. GET INFORMATION REGARDING THE FOLLOWING..

a. number of lines
b. how each line is scanned (What does scanned mean?)
c. the rhyme scheme for the English sonnet
d. divisions within the English sonnet
e. common sonnet themes--what did Shakespeare write about in the sonnets?--get a list of
ideas that would be good topic paragraphs for a multi-paragraph essay.

B. FOR EACH SONNET BELOW, ALSO BE ABLE TO DO THE FOLLOWING...

a. Define the relationship between form (how it is said) and content (what is said)
b. subject of the sonnet is_____
c. figures of speech and how they contribute to meaning--identify and explain them
d. diction--the kind of words used--remember the forms of discourse
e. tone--the mood or attitude the poet has to the subject about which he is writing
f. theme--the main idea in the sonnet that would be a good topic for an essay...

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The greatest sonnet sequence in the English language is that of Shakespeare, who early in his career composed 154. To whom he wrote them and why he did and whether they contain information about his life are debated. Some critics of Shakespeare think it is just better to read and enjoy them for themselves. They do, however, have a relationship in terms of form and content to parts of Romeo and Juliet:


Sonnet XVIII:


Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest,
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest;
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see;
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Sonnet XXIX:

When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes.
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon thyself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate:
For thy sweet love rememb'red such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

Sonnet CXVI-(probably the best sonnet to study comparatively with any Shakespeare play dramatizing love: note the presence of the ethereal and pragmatic)

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Sonnet CXLVII.

My love is as a fever, longing still
For that which longer nurseth the disease;
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
The uncertain sickly appetite to please.
My reason, the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve
Desire is death, which physic did except.
Past cure I am, now reason is past care,
And frantic-mad with evermore unrest;
My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are,
At random from the truth, vainly express'd;
For I have sworn thee fair, and though thee bright,
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.

Sometimes, Shakespeare makes fun of his own language and sonnet writing:

Sonnet CXXX

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow in her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddess go,
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.




PUZZLE: DO YOU RECOGNIZE THIS--what did Shakespeare do?


Rom. [To Juliet] If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this;
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
'To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

Jul. Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.

Rom. Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?

Jul. Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.

Rom. O! then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;
They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.

Jul. Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.

Rom. Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take.
Thus from my lips, by thine, my sin is purged.

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Drama as an art form.

We have studied poetry and short stories, and you learned vocabulary that helped to analyze each: plot--inciting force, rising action, climax, falling action, denouement, types of conflict--physical, mental, moral, psychological etc., and of course the common figures of speech

Some 500 years before the birth of Jesus in ancient Greece, the great philosopher Aristotle wrote a work called the Poetics. This work outlined what different kinds of literature ought to be like. He is considered to be the father of literary criticism and analysis, and his ideas have been applied (often incorrectly), to authors writing long after his death.

Can we apply what Aristotle says to Shakespeare writing about 1000 year later:


ARISTOTLE SAID:


1) "Tragedy is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and possessing magnitude.. .in the mode of action; not narrated; and effecting pity and fear [what we call) catharsis of such emotions."

Aristotle speaks of the need for mature tragedy to have a complex action by which he meant that reversal and recognition result logically from a change in fortune:

reversal: is a change from one state of affairs to its exact opposite." recognition: a change from ignorance to knowledge.. on the part of those who are marked for good fortune or bad."

5) .. Good men ought not to be shown passing from prosperity to misfortune, for this does not inspire either inspire pity or fear, but only revulsion; nor evil men rising from ill fortune to prosperity.. neither should a wicked man be seen falling from prosperity into misfortune.. We are left with the man whose place is between these extremes. Such is the man who on the one hand is not preeminent in virtue and justice, and yet on the other hand does not fall into misfortune through vice or depravity. He falls because of some mistake:'[often mistranslated as a tragic (moral) flaw].

WE MUST SEE IF THIS INFORMATION FROM ARISTOTLE CAN APPLY TO ROMEO AND JULIET...

IN ADDITION TO THE QUESTIONS IN THE TEXTBOOK, SEE IF YOU CAN APPLY THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS TO THE PLAY. THEY LOOK SIMPLE, BUT THEY DO WORK, GETTING YOU TO THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU ARE READING. THEY ARE FROM A CRITIC NAMED LEN MOZZI:

1. WHO is talking and to whom?
2. WHAT does this character want?
3. WHERE is the character-how does he/she feel about being there?
4, WHEN does the character want what be/she wants? Why insistent? What is at stake?
5, WHY Why cannot the character get what he/she wants? Obstacles?
6. HOW is the character going to achieve goals? What actions are taken? This last one is at the heart of
Aristotle's criticism. Consider the following plot elements--recalling the triangle diagram;--exposition,
inciting force, rising action, climax, falling action, denouement.