Term Paper on "Close Reading of Shakespeare"

Quoted Instructions for "Close Reading of Shakespeare" Assignment:

Okay, I really, really hope you can help me here!! Once when I use your service, you guys cancelled my order for some reason giving me very little time to react, so I*****'m really begging you for that not to happen now.

This is the final paper for a class about Ovid and Renaissance *****s that reworked Ovidean narratives. It is therefore important that this paper is a close textual reading of both Shakespeare*****'s Titus Andronicus and Ovid*****'s Metamorphosis. The story of Philomel and Tereus and Procne*****'s revenge in Book 6 (Met.) are obviously the main narratives to pay attention to, but because every book of the Metamorphoses is a bit of a self-contained web that deals with a problem in confusing ways, it is important to also consider the entire Book 6 (which includes the story of Minerva and Arachne, and Niobe and her children). It might be important to address what is the significance of the other stories in the book to Titus, as well as make reference to other big figures that might illuminate what Shakespeare is doing here: Hecuba, Orpheus, Narcissus, Echo... Whatever you think is important I guess, but it*****'s only 10 pages long, and it is supposed to be a close reading that puts forth a controlled and focused argument.

These were the instructions for our previous essay, to give you a sense of what my professor is looking for:

*****"what features of the Ovidian narrative are either elaborated or downplayed, and to what effect? What in the original narrative seems either useful or problematic to the later poet? Also: are there structural or stylistic gestures that the later poet recycles? What formal or tonal changes do you discern?

The challenge of this assignment is to use what we call close reading �*****" the slow and detailed observation of how a poem is put together and how individual words, phrases, or lines contribute to larger effects �*****" in order to make a more general, provocative claim about what the poem does, or perhaps, what it tries and fails to do. As you draft your essay, I suggest beginning by assembling lots and lots of detailed observations. Then see if you can arrange those observations into the skeleton of an argument. Think carefully about order: is there a particular moment you can use to launch your essay �*****" a moment that captures a problem or paradox or complication that invites further discussion? By the same token, is there a section of the poem that you can think of as your destination: a place that will become comprehensible or meaningful thanks to your argument?*****"

Also, I will be sending over the previous essay that I wrote for this class, to give you a better sense of what to do. I will also be sending you some essays or bits of essays that I think might be useful, as well as my notes for this class-- I will send you the notes that specifically talk about Titus Andronicus in a separate file... I apologize in advance for the incoherence!

I have an account in questia.com, and in my *****"bookshelf*****" there are some essays that could be useful. *****"What is written shall be executed*****" (Anderson) is especially relevant to the thesis that I have proposed in the title, specially from pages 102 onwards (perhaps 111 onwards). The line *****"What is written shall be executed*****" (from Titus) should actually definitely be in the essay, perhaps in the introduction or even as the title.

These are the articles that I think could be useful from my bookshelf:

Shakespeare and Ovid

Ovid and His Influence

Brill*****'s Companion to Ovid

*****"What Is Written Shall Be Executed*****": *****"Nude Contracts*****" and *****"Lively Warrants*****" in Titus Andronicus; Criticism, Vol. 45, 2003

The Rhetoric of the Body from Ovid to Shakespeare

Sexuality as a Signifier for Power Relations: Using Lavinia, of Shakespeare*****'s *****'Titus Andronicus.*****'; Criticism, Vol. 38, 1996

My Questia username: luxastraea

and password: cheers1243

As long as it*****'s possible, it is very, very important that you use the Golding translation of the Metamorphoses, because that is the one Shakespeare read and used. Please let me know what translation you are using in the paper (I really, really hope you can use Golding) because it should obviously be the same one throughout the paper.

Here are some random thoughts relating to the topic I suggested in the title:

Titus as over-dramatization of Ovid. Titus is read as a play about learning to write a play (partly to resolve the problem that it seems excessive and therefore amateurish). I propose that it is not only about learning, but also about attempting to one-up the teacher, to test the limits of poetic independence, the effects of quotations and allusions (is quoting like raping? Penetrating, appropriating, changing, morphing tradition? Does the literary tradition does violence to itself? Shakespeare to Ovid? Is anything engendered from this struggle? Is it fertile, is there reproduction? Is it sterile? Is this copia an augmentation, an exact imitation, or a devaluation? Is there anything new in Titus Andronicus? What is new? Is there agency? Do characters just follow guidelines of vengeance and violence pre-established by tradition, by already written stories? Lavinia writes her story in sand�*****"vulnerable, fragile. Lavinia shows book of metamorphosis (story of Philomela, Tereus, Procne) �*****"the story of what to do is there, and characters follow through. Do characters innovate? Does Shakespeare? How?

Do literary iterations represent innovation?

Shakespeare one-upping Ovid, but also questioning the value of a work that owes so much to tradition

The figure of Aaron is new: he is the stagemaster, the playwright, he guides the show, he is Shakespeare in a way, looking at his bastard, dark-skinned son (the play itself) and saying *****this is my son***** claiming paternity, claiming that there is his stamp on his face (skin color). Rejecting allegiance to the mother, Tamora, the queen (maybe the Ovidean tradition?). He furthermore claims: He is me, I am him, claiming all responsibility for his *****work*****

But there is an interesting moment of insecurity, when Aaron tells Tamora*****s grown sons that they shouldn*****t kill their half-brother for he is *****their brother on the surest side***** (importance of maternal ownership, which we have analogized to the ovidian tradition).

Aaron makes everyone do everything and claims all the glory�*****"so there is our agency, our Shakespearian innovation?

But at the same time, when Aaron talks about the *****unfrequented plots***** where the brothers should rape Lavinia there is a very evident (and self-aware, I think) mistake: rapes such as Lavinia*****s are not *****unfrequented plots***** (taking plot to mean both place and a narrative argument), they are in fact *****commonplaces.***** The irony is that the entire play is a quotation (if mutilated, distorted, morphed, augmented??) of ovid*****s Philomela. Also, ironically, Aaron*****s speech in which he mentions the *****unfrequented plots***** is almost entirely a quotation of *****¦. The Jew of Malta, I think*****¦ or maybe Spanish Tragedy.

I think that for some reason, Aaron are the baby are definitely key. hmm, perhaps a good way to structure the essay would be to first explore the ways in which Shakespeare uses Ovid (not only the obvious plot-line and the analogies between many characters, but also themes of barbarization, of impotent victims, of of revenge, of metamorphosis), and then consider the elements of innovation (the characters of Titus as readers of Ovid, Tamora*****'s sons as better Tereuses, Aaron as the wildcard, Aaron*****'s baby as something completely new to the narrative, perhaps a commentary of what the play as a whole is attempting to reconcile), and then what remains of Shakespeare*****'s self-consciousness of his debt to tradition. I don*****'t know. I*****'m throwing out ideas here, but you should do whatever you think works better as the essay is coming through.

Thank you very, very much, and I really hope you can help me here, because I am desperate. I am adding a few extra sources to the order just in case you need to use them, but the essay should be really just be focused on a close reading of Titus and The Metamorphoses, so you shouldn*****'t quote other texts too much at all. If somebody said something particularly clever and you could footnote where you read that interpretation, but other than that, the other sources should be regarded as inspiration, because this essay is not about the scholarship on these books, but on the original sources themselves. You can check out the previous essay that I wrote for this class (and which I will be sending you) because I probably am not explaining myself too well.

Again, thank you!!! and please, please don*****'t cancel this order for whatever reason because I will be seriously screwed. Also, I ordered the 8-23 hours plan but the sooner you can have this the better!!! 23 hours will probably be far, far too late :( *****