AYLI, Day Three:Review Day

ENGL 305

Dr. Fike

Business

• Annotated bibliography assignment. http://faculty.winthrop.edu/fikem/Courses/ENGL%20305/305%20Annotated%20Bibliography%20Assignment.htm

• Things to check:– The bibliography in your Bevington anthology.– Dacus online catalog (Library of Congress Subject headings).– MLA Bibliography (use various combinations of search terms).– Literature databases (e.g., Literature Resource Center).– JSTOR.

• Once you find a relevant source, check the sources that the author cites.

Review

• AYLI, the play’s title, has a variety of meanings, but they all probably relate to enjoyment and flexible interpretation.

• Harold Bloom thinks that Rosalind is a paragon of womanhood and that she is intellectual (like Hamlet) and funny (like Falstaff).

• Rosalind sets out to give Orlando a healthful dose of reality about women and marriage.

• He has to check his sexuality, and that is what the snake/lion images are all about.

• In a sense, Rosalind is counseling herself at the same time, for she too is in love.

Summary Chart

• http://faculty.winthrop.edu/fikem/Courses/ENGL%20305/305%20AYLI%20Chart%202.htm

Final Question

• Does Rosalind get a raw deal? • By marrying Orlando, her social and

intellectual inferior, she disinherits herself (5.4.167-68).

• In other words, Bloom’s ultimate female character commits herself to married life with a lesser, poorer man.

• Is that really as we like it?•

Midterm Examination: What It Will Cover

• The 3 comedies.

• The 2 histories.

• The Bedford Companion material.

• Everything from the slide presentations but especially the key concepts.

• Pay special attention to the passages that I mention, especially those identified in the PowerPoint presentations.

How To Review

• Start reviewing early and review periodically before the exam.

• You should go over your class notes before the end of each class day.

• You should review all of your notes on the weekends.

• Pay attention to concepts and to passages that we discuss in class.

Midterm Examination Format

• Total: 20 points– 10 points/35 minutes:

• A section of passages that you must identify by title and speaker, relate to a key concept (or to something from the Bedford Companion), analyze, and connect to the rest of the play.

• Respond to all five quotations (2 points apiece). • Each answer should be at least a half page (bare minimum)

in a large bluebook. More than a page is not necessary.– 10 points/35 minutes: An essay question. Your response

should be at least 3 pages in a large bluebook.– 5 minutes: Look over your work.

Guidelines for Taking the Exam• You may begin five minutes before the start of the period, but everyone

must end by five minutes past the end of the class period. You may thus have 85 minutes to take the test. Bring a watch.

• The essay question relates to the material in the Bedford Companion and/or concepts that we have discussed.

• There will be no choice of quotations or essay questions: Respond to all 5 quotations and to the 1 essay question.

• Bring a large bluebook (or bluebooks: two would be better) and a blue or black ballpoint pen. Bring more than one pen. Someone always runs out or forgets to bring a pen.

• Do not use notebook paper. If you forget a bluebook, you will have to go to the bookstore and buy one.

• Write only on one side of each page.• Use the blue covers and facing pages as scrap paper if you need to.• Use one-inch margins.• Please do not use handwriting smaller than Courier New 12-point.• If your handwriting is really large, write on every other line. In this case, you

will almost certainly need a second bluebook.

What You Must Do

• Identify the passage by speaker and play title.

• Link the quotation to a key concept that we have introduced. Define the concept.

• Analyze some of its contents (this is the major part of your response).

• Connect the passage and something else in the play:  a brief thematic or imagistic link.

How To Drop the Ball

• Getting the speaker and/or play title wrong.• Summarizing the play rather than analyzing the passage.• Writing more about the connection and less on the

quotation itself.• Using the quotation as a spring board into telling me

everything you know about the play from which it is taken.• Writing so much about the quotations that you run out of

time for the essay.• Thinking that you only had to write one sentence in

response to the essay question (it happened to one of my best students).

How To Study

• Review the quotations that we have studied in class.

• Try to predict which quotations I will choose.• Practice writing responses.• Note: I will not give you obscure quotations, but I

do not guarantee that we have discussed 100% of them in class.

• The online quizzes are a good place to start.

Practice Passage

• Jaques's 7 ages speech at 2.7.135-65.

• Read it twice out loud.

• 7 minutes: Write a response such as you will write in your bluebook during the midterm examination.

• There are answers on the next slide.

Possible Responses• Identification: Jaques in AYLI. • Key concepts: Satire, melancholy, chronos, human evil vs. surd evil,

primogeniture, mixed modes• Analysis: This section should be the largest part of your answer.

– 7 ages of man.– Passage of time (chronos).  – Tension:  Standard for a good life vs. negatives in the passage (cf. J's cynicism).  Oliver

and Frederick illustrate some of this negativity.– Jaques is not completely correct about old men—see Adam at 2.3.47.– Theater metaphor.– Women are absent except in line 2.

• Connection: What does the 7 ages speech have in common with the rest of the play?

– Passage of time.– Melancholy man (4.1)– Imagery of mutability in Amiens's song at 5.3.15ff. – Plus connection to the lover.– Human evil vs. surd evil.– Perhaps a connection also to things that J says elsewhere, especially his statement about

satirizing types rather than individual persons at 2.7.70ff. He is giving us types rather than individuals in the 7 ages speech as well.

Group Exercise: Brainstorming

• Some of your short responses will relate to a key concept in the play, and the essay question may also be about a key concept. Bedford material is fair game throughout the exam. Note the link to the study questions.

• What, then, are the concepts that we have encountered thus far in our course?

• Five minutes: In small groups, list as many as you can. Look through your notes, etc.

• Report your list to the class. Let’s write them on the board.

Next Question

• Do you have any questions about anything in any of the plays or the Bedford Companion?

• Note that there is a list of study questions on our website for readings in the Bedford Companion.

Essay Question

• The essay question will cover both comedies and histories.

• Obviously, you have not read the histories yet, but we CAN talk about how to study in terms of the comedies. See next slide.

Group Exercise re. Essay Question

In groups of 5 do the following: • First, for each play we have studied, list as many

themes/concept/issue/motif as you can. Write them down in your notes.

• Second, identify one theme that runs throughout all three plays and write a question about it.  The question should take the following form:

– We have seen x theme/concept/issue/motif in all the plays of our comedy and history units and in the Bedford Companion.

– In general terms sketch the parameters of the issue itself. – Identify four characters who exemplify/relate to the theme to

varying degrees.  All three plays should be represented. – Argue in favor of the three and against the one.

• Share your questions with the class. Repeat this process as you study for the test. END