And....I'm back. Back from a deep furrow of Shakespeare, which I was revising for my exam today. At 6 hours long, it's rather on the end of the 'nightmare' spectrum, but I made it out in one piece. Some of the questions I was hoping for, but in slightly, or drastically altered forms. This was a shame as it meant having to avoid writing about a couple of things I knew a lot about, but wasn't quite confident enough to write on for two hours. Perhaps in hindsight this will be a mistake, but you live and learn. In terms of the paper, all agreed it was more on the difficult side, with the first section particularly unenviable. So, as a paper I will score it 5 out of 10. As for my performance, I will offer a solid 7.5 out of ten. If only that mean I was going to get a 75...

These are the three questions I answered, or rather, to be in keeping with the rhetoric of exams, and to be honest to my own performance, attempted.

3.Anna Barton describes 1 Henry IV as a play 'in which comedy continually tests itself against historical truth.' Explore this perception.

18. ''He is not to be taken as a playwright who opens up a complexity of Elizabethan attitudes...but is stuck with the responsibility thrust upon him by Jonson in a commendatory poem prefacing the 1623 folio of the plays: 'He was not of an age, but for all time!'' (Gordon Williams)

How would relieving Shakespeare of this responsibility affect your reading of any one or more of his works?

22. Consider the role of pregnancy in at least two of Shakespeare's works.

Labels: exams, Shakespeare

"The circle of human knowledge, illuminated by the pale, cold light of reason, is so infinitesimally small, the dark regions of human ignorance which lie beyond that luminous ring so immeasurably vast, that imagination is feign to step up to the borderline and send the warm, richly colored beams of her fairy lantern streaming out into the darkness ; and so, peering into the gloom, she is apt to mistake the shadowy reflections of her own figure for real beings moving in the abyss.

Sir James George FrazerThe Golden Bough

April 2010 / May 2010 / June 2010 / July 2010 / August 2010 / September 2010 / February 2011 / April 2011 / August 2011 / September 2011 /

Historical Shakespeare. / Jesus back then / A trip to Cambridge / William Kemp day / local, but prized elsewhere / BA humbug - the perils of an arts degree / Close reading practise. / No work / cool video. / Working from home / Second fiddle /

The title of this blog comes from a poem by Coleridge, A Wish: Wriiten in Jesus Wood, Feb. 10th, 1792, Plus most blogs are moans anyway. Including this one. lol manuscripts

email me here
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bootlessmoan.blogspot.com

I'm a 23 year-old student in London Cambridge London, studying English Literature Law. It's hard to really think of anything truly personal I can put here that might give you some idea of who I am, so I will just tell you that my favourite Shakespeare play is Richard II, my favourite chocolate bar is Snickers, and I have a bit of a thing for instant coffee, especially if someone else makes it for me.

I'm interested in Renaissance Literature, Higher Education policy, and libraries.
I'm completely in love with a Scottish girl.