3/31 Wroth' s Urania in Yaletown

There will be no formal posting this week. But should you feel the urge to reflect, comment, summarize, pontificate, or otherwise procrastinate, I welcome any Final Thoughts.

Our class will meet chez moi at the following address from the usual time:

198 Aquarius Mews
Buzzer code: 1635#
Come to floor 22, apartment to the left, and then right, 02.

3/24 Don Quixote

It has been argued that Cervantes' parody of romance killed the genre. He is often read as the watershed figure between these older forms of peripatetic narratives and the emerging form of the novel. Considering all we know now about the romance, does this book seem to you to be doing something different? If so, what is it?

They say a picture is worth 1000 words (or, in this case, 250-300)

Redcross Redux

Okay, so there's this knight dressed in red. A princess, nay, his true love, is in grave peril and in need of saving (some 'Duessa' has a mission to separate the lovers). Bearing his 'sword of truth' and guarded by his stout shield emblazoned with a cross he sets out to rescue her. Aided by three 'graces' who instruct and aid him in various ways, he eventually confronts the dragon who is the duessa's slave and who is guarding the princess and keeping her parents' kingdom in thralldom. He slays the dragon with the sword of truth, dispatches the evil duessa and frees the king and queen and all the kingdom from the evil spells that have afflicted them. In gratitude the King allows the lovers to marry and eventually to inherit the kingdom.
. . . yes, I've just been watching Walt Disney's Sleeping Beauty on CBC.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

3/17 Pandosto and The Winter's Tale

For easier comparison, I'm including below the change of names that happens between Greene's _Pandosto_ and Shakespeare's _The Winter's Tale_:

Pandosto of Bohemia becomes Leontes of Sicily
Egistus of Sicily by Polixenes of Bohemia
Hermion=Bellaria
Maximillius=Garinter
Florizel=Dorastus
Perdita=Fawnia
Camillo=Franion and Capnio

For the secondary reading from Lori Newcomb, Emily can bring the important points that she wants to highlight from the chapter. The rest of you, please focus specifically on the first few introductory pages 77-88 and the final section, "The Carpenter in the Street," 117-29.

1) Consider how the change in title reflects Shakespeare's different handling of the same raw material as Greene. What changes when we move from _Pandosto the Triumph of Time_ or alternately _Dorastus and Fawnia_ to _The Winter' s Tale_?

2) How does a "dramatic" romance fit in with the genre we have been discussing thus far this semester? Or does it seem like an ill fitting term to describe this late play of Shakespeare?

3/10 Field trip to UBC

There will be no formal posting this week on the blog.

But I welcome you to post questions here about matters from the talk or intersections with our class as you feel inspiration.

Talk Tuesday

Here's the information I found on the Green College Website:

"Working Language: Shakespeare and Publicity in Early Modern England"
Paul Yachnin
Tomlinson Professor of Shakespeare Studies and Chair, English Dept, McGill University

Coach House, Green College, 6201 Cecil Green Park Road, UBC
5-6:30 pm, Tuesday, March 10, 2009

I believe a map of how to get there can be found at this site:
http://www.greencollege.ubc.ca/About/p-about.htm

I will be up at SFU & leave at 3 pm; if anyone is coming from here and wants to travel together, let me know.