Shakespeare play Titus:
1. Governance and authority are themes in many of our texts. Discuss how kingly/ducal power and authority are constructed and/or dramatized in any one of the plays we have studied, paying particular attention to the kinds of problems that occur and how the play turns them into dramatic events.
2. Many of the plays we have studied dramatize problems of allegiance, obligation, or obedience – between ruler and subject, parent and child, friends, lovers, soldiers. Discuss how this topic – or an aspect of it – is treated in any one of the plays.
3. Gender relations, both as a God -given (ide al) order and as a social reality, form a frequent thematic preoccupation in many of the plays on the syllabus. Discuss how one of them sets up patterns of expectations for male and/or female behavior, and how transgressions or unexpected deviations from those norms are treated, both by other characters and by the play at large: are violations tolerated? Condoned? Punished? And what does that suggest about the play’s attitude towards the conventions it portrays?
4. Analyze the function and significance of se tting in one of the plays, and discuss its relation to a larger reading of the play. Some possible contrasts you might want to consider include: urban/rural, night/day, court/city, England/Europe; you could also consider the use of stage directions, both implicit (contained in the dialogue) and explicit (printed in italics and set apart from the dialogue). Finally, remember that setting is as much a function of place (Rome, Athens, Verona , etc.) as of history (Republican Rome, ancient Athens , contemporary V enice ); you might want to consider if these two kinds of setting work differently from each other, and if so, how.
5. Discuss the function of violence, either comical or horrific, in one play studied this term. Does staged vioence invite the audience to identify with the perpetrator, with the victim, or are we alienated by both? How do narrative descriptions of violence affect our reaction to these acts? Is the violence gratuitous? How do we know how we are supposed to feel about that ? How does the play go about framing or positioning violence – and the audience’s reactions to it?