Shakespeare play:What does the language tell us about the state of mind of the character(s) speaking?

Length: 750-1000 wordsFor your second essay, you have the choice of ONE of the two prompts below:Creative ProjectAs the name implies, this option encourages you to be creative. For this essay, you begin by designing a prop, costume, set design, hairstyle/makeup design, or some other creative project related to one of Shakespeares plays. You can show your design using drawings, so you dont have to make anything. You just need to be able to demonstrate what it looks like and how it would be used in the play. Finally and this is critical you want to show how the choices you made in designing your creation reflects your understanding of the play. For example, a staging of Hamlet in a 21st Century corporate board room could reflect a particular interpretation of the play, and thus a person could conceivably argue that the insider politics and back stabbing associated with corporate power struggles is appropriate for the courtly battles and corruption taking place in Hamlets Denmark (Something is rotten in the state Denmark). Of course, youd want to cite specific passages from the play to show how your 21st Century stage set reflects a solid interpretation of the play.Close Reading Interpretive EssayYou may also choose to select a brief passage either a soliloquy by one character or a dialogue exchange between several and write an essay in which you offer a close reading of the passage. Your essay would interpet the meaning of Shakespeares language by looking closely at a specific passage and formulating an argument about it. If you choose this option, you will likely need to look up unfamiliar words or references as you investigate the passage. Your task, if you choose this option, is to make an argument about the passage you have selected. What does it mean? What does the language tell us about the state of mind of the character(s) speaking? How does it fit into the rest of the play? To complete this option, you will need to answer questions like these. In order to choose a manageable amount of text for close reading, select a passage that is between 10 and 30 lines long. For example, you could conceivably write that in Hamlets famous To be or not to be speech from 3.1 of Hamlet, the prince is not really contemplating suicide, as many believe, but that he is actually pretending to be suicidal in order to make his uncle think that he is going insane. Again, as with the creative project option, you would need to cite specific passages to show how your reading of the speech reflects a solid interpretation of the play.Remember, you only need to choose ONE of the options above, not both. Finally, please observe the following conventions when quoting Shakespeare: Cite lines in parentheses by Act.Scene.Line Numbers.
When a passage is in verse, keep the line breaks from the original.
Italicize titles of plays
Example (verse):It seems then that the tidings of this broilBrake off our business for the Holy Land. (1 Henry IV 1.1.1-48)Example (prose):Marry then, sweet wag, when thou art king, let not us that are squires of the nights body be called thieves of the days beauty. Let us be Dianas foresters, gentlemen of the shade, minions of the moon, and let men say we be men of good government, being governed, as the sea is, by our noble and chaste mistress the moon, under whose countenance we steal. (1 Henry IV 24-31)

 

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