ENGLISH 2310 SECOND
MIDTERM EXAM
GRADY FALL
2009
PART I. Identify FOUR (and only four) of the following terms in a sentence or two, noting their relevance to this semesters’ reading.
the
Theatre machiavel
Nahum Tate sprezzatura
blank verse
blazon First Folio
PART
II. Identify FOUR
of the following passages. Supply the name of the text from which it is drawn, the author's
name, the speaker, and a brief (1-2 sentence) description of the context of the
passage and its significance. (40%)
1
If she must teem,
Create her child of spleen,
that it may live
And be a thwart, disnatured torment to her!
Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth;
With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks;
Turn all her mother's pains and benefits
To laughter and contempt, that she may feel
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child!
2
One
day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But
came the waves and washed it away:
Agayne I wrote it with a second hand,
But
came the tyde, and made my paynes his pray.
"Vayne man," sayd she,
"that dost in vaine assay,
A
mortall thing so to immortalize,
For
I my selve shall lyke to this decay,
And
eek my name bee wyped out lykewize."
"Not
so,"quod I,"let
baser things devize
To
dy in dust, but you shall live
by fame:
My
verse your vertues rare shall eternize,
And
in the heavens wryte your glorious name.
Where
whenas death shall all the world subdew,
Our
love shall live, and later life renew."
3
Return with her?
Why,
the hot-blooded
Our
youngest born, I could as well be brought
To
knee his throne, and, squire-like, pension beg
To keep base life afoot. Return with her?
Persuade
me rather to be slave and sumpter
To
this detested groom.
4
The philosopher showeth
you the way, he informeth you of the particularities,
as well as of the tediousness of the way, as of the pleasant lodging you shall
have when your journey is ended, as of the many by-turnings that may divert you
from your way. But this is to man but to him that will read him, and read him
with attentive studious painfulness…
5
These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend
no good to us. Though the wisdom of
nature can reason it thus and thus, yet nature finds itself scourged by the
sequent effects. Love cools, friendship
falls off, brothers divide; in cities, mutinies; in countries, discord; in palaces,
treason; and the bond cracked 'twixt son and father. This villain of mine comes under the
prediction; there's son against father.
The king falls from the bias of nature; there's father against
child. We have seen the best of our
time.
6
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 on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, 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.
7
Hadst
though been aught but gossamer, feathers, air,
So many fathom down precipitating,
Thou'dst
shivered like an egg; but thou dost breathe;
Hast heavy substance; bleed'st
not; speak'st; art sound.
Ten masts at each make not the altitude
Which thou hast perpendicularly fell.
Thy life's a miracle. Speak yet again.
PART III. Respond to one of the following questions with a well-organized essay. (40%)
1.
Contrast the view of human nature expressed by Shakespeare in King Lear with that implied in
2. Write an essay about the theme of disguise and deception in King Lear, with a strong and clear thesis and liberal use of examples.
Some questions to consider (but not to answer sequentially): who deceives, and why? who disguises themselves, and why? What's the difference between deception used for good purposes, and deception used for ill? Or is there a difference? (Is the play worried that there might not be one? How can we tell?) Are there circumstances where deception or disguise is to be preferred to honesty and truth? What about self-deception?