Study Guide for the Bedford Companion

ENGL 305

Dr. Fike

Note: This document is under construction. It will grow with each assignment and be complete by the end of the Spring 2013 semester. Not all of the passages in the slide presentations are represented below; therefore, you will surely want to review the slide shows.

Shakespeare, "Shakespeare," and the Problem of Authorship, 11-28

• What is your sense of the Shakespeare authorship debate?
• How do Shakespeare's plays relate to the culture in which they were written?
• How did Elizabethan history and culture influence MSND?
• What position did the Puritans take toward the theater? Why was that? (See also 112.)
• How does the Elizabethan Period's concept of authorship differ from our own?

Comedy, 81-85

• Explain how "structure"--not humor--is the essential ingredient of a comedy.
• In what respect are Shakespeare's comedies "hybrids"?
• How does MSND relate to issues like marriage and women's rights?

Performances, Playhouses, and Players, 109-28; esp. The Countryside, 225-28

• No women were allowed to act on stage until the Restoration of Charles II in 1660. What kind of consequences did that have in Shakespeare's plays?
• What is "doubling"?
• Why is it significant that the playhouses were outside the main part of London?
• Explain the concept of the "carnivalesque."

"I Loved My Books": Shakespeare's Reading, 145-62

• Be familiar with the major influences on Shakespeare's writing: the Bible, Ovid, Plutarch, and Holinshed.
• What was Shakespeare's orientation toward his sources? See 153.
• After the Bible, what was the most important book in Elizabethan England?
• What texts that Shakespeare could have read (or would have heard about) concern the exploration of the new world?
• Which one of our plays relates to Montaigne?
• What is "complementarity"?

Mixed Modes, 97-98

• McDonald states that "The Merchant of Venice is probably the most illustrative example of the high cost of comic resolution." What does he mean by this? In other words, how does the play incline toward problem comedy?
• So what are the characteristics of a play that illustrates "mixed modes"? Why might Shakespeare have created a mixed-modal play?

Town and Country:  Life in Shakespeare's England, 219-36

• How does the world of material culture impact Shakespeare's plays? Think especially about guilds.
• Where does the Globe Theater fit into the geography of London? That are the Liberties? Where is Eastcheap?
• How might bad weather have influenced A Midsummer Night's Dream? More broadly, how about the seasons?
• How much did an average laborer make per year? How much does Falstaff owe Justice Shallow at the end of 2H4? How much does "a fine outfit for a man or a woman" cost?
• What kind of "values and routines of the rural existence" might Shakespeare have been exposed to while he was growing up?
• What are "enclosures"? How are they relevant to As You Like It?
• What objection to the theater did the Puritans raise on the basis of clothing?
• What is the 1623 Folio?
• What is "the most important historical phenomenon in the late sixteenth century"?

Primogeniture, 263-65

• What is it, and how does it relate to our plays? Note that it is a concept relevant to ALL eight of our plays. How does each play call specific attention to it?

History, 90-94

• What is the Great (or Second) Tetralogy? In what way is it "an epic story"? How is it "an enormous comedy weighted with intense tragic insights"?
• What lies at the heart of R2's downfall?
• What are "the textuality of history" and "the historicity of texts"?
• What contribution did E. M. W. Tillyard make to our understanding of the Early Modern period?
• What is the relationship between Shakespeare's plays and "the dominant political theory"?
• What do New Historicists maintain about the role of Shakespeare's plays in relation to the crown?

From His Notes of a Conversation with Queen Elizabeth I about Richard II

• In what ways was Elizabeth I like R2?

The Theater and the Authorities, 123-25

• Be clear about the relationship between the theater and the following things: the plague, the Puritans, the Liberties.
• What did the Earl of Essex do?
• In what way was the theater like a pressure release valve? Note that similar statements are made on 93-94, 115, and 324.

Testimony about a Performance of Richard II, 140

• When Shakespeare's acting company was investigated for complicity in Essex's coup attempt, what were the findings?

Politics and Religion: Early Modern Ideologies, 303-25

• How did Queen Elizabeth deal with her half-sister, Queen Mary Stuart of Scotland?
• What was Elizabeth's role in relationship to the church and Parliament? Re. the church, what is the via media (308, 317)?
• According to page 305, how does Richard II reflect Elizabeth's reign?
• What were Elizabeth's relationships with advisors and potential suitors?
• What does MacDonald mean on 308 by "self-representation"? In what ways was she a player in the "theater of politics" (312)?
• What were King James I's strengths and weaknesses?
• What does McDonald say on 315 about King Lear as a historical background analogy?
• What did the Popes think of Elizabeth (316)?
• What is the connection between Guy Fawkes, the Gunpowder Plot, and Macbeth?
• What was one of the causes of the English Revolution (318)?
• Understand the connection between the Great Chain of Being and our two history plays. Be especially clear on how Ulysses's speech on 322-23 relates to our plays.
• Why is 1588 such an important date in English history?
• In what way was the theater like "a safety valve" (324)?
• Why did the Puritans hate the theater?

Holinshed, 185-86

• Make sure that you understand the relationship between this excerpt and the politics in King Henry IV, Part I.
• Shakespeare followed Holinshed's error. What was that error?

MIDTERM EXAM

• See 101 for catharsis of fear and pity.
• What is a tragedy?
• What are the six parts of a tragedy?
• What are the three parts of a tragedy?
• What are the three parts of the plot? See 104.

Men and Women: Gender, Family, Society, 253-77

• What WAS the situation of women in Shakespeare's time?
• What did Aristotle, humoural theory, and the church have to do with this situation?
• What does McDonald say about prostitutes on page 256?
• Who was Aemilia Lanyer, and what was her possible connection to Shakespeare?
• What sort of abuse was directed toward educated women (258)?
• What was the status of patriarchy in Shakespeare's time (esp. 260)?
• What is a "companionate marriage"? How does it reflect a shift in marriage conventions?
• What did reformed theology, especially Puritanism, have to do with the shift toward companionate marriage?
• What is primogeniture?
• What do Lawrence Stone and Ann Jennalie Cook have to say about marriage (265-66)?
• Was divorce an option in the Early Modern period?
• Page 268: What was the average age for marriage?
• Were parents attached to their children the way they are today?
• What does McDonald mean by "enforced intimacy" on 271?
• What were the types of "irregular" marriages?
• What percentage of brides were pregnant when they got married?
• What about homosexuality?
• Describe the social hierarchy (274).
• What are "sumptuary laws"?
• English society moved from feudalism to ___________?
• What was the social status of Jews, Africans, and American natives? What edict did Queen Elizabeth issue?
• Note that page 279 has an excellent description of the four humours.

• What does Shakespeare seem to borrow from this text?
• Be clear how this borrowing relates to two key terms on page 93: "the textuality of history" and "the historicity of texts."