For next time, please finish reading King Lear. At the end of class, we'll watch portions Akira Kurosawa's movie, Ran (乱), a rewriting of Lear set in feudal Japan.
A few words about the final. There will be two options: either a) you can do the take-home assignment, where you choose 3 out of 4 questions to write about, for a total of 4-5 pages; or b) you design a topic yourself and write a 4-5 page paper about it.
If you're interested in the second option, I recommend thinking about a question that strikes you as interesting, but which doesn't strike you as having an immediately recognizable answer. "What is the relationship between the Fool's irony and Edgar's nonsense?" might be such a question. Or, "What is the role of women in More's Utopia?" Or, "How are animals used in Lear and Gulliver's Travels?" Or even, "What are the differences between Shakespeare's King Lear and the Emperor in Kurosawa's Ran?"
Anything we have read or watched in the second half of the course is open for discussion, but at least one key work must be a written text.
Once you come up with an interesting question or two, attune your ears and eyes so that you begin looking and listening for spots where that question arises.
If you choose to write a paper, you'll need to send me a quick one-paragraph prospectus explaining what you want to write about, with three key quotations that you will analyze; that will be due in two weeks. In the meantime, please send me any questions you have, or drop by my office hours (T 2.20-3.20), or ask for a more convenient time to meet.
Happy Weekending!
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