MID-TERM
Choose one (1) out of the following three questions and write a coherent, well-organized thesis that is also well-supported by attention to the details of language and image.
(Due in class, Tuesday, April 29th; Maximum of 5 typed, Times Roman 12, double-spaced pages)

1) Consider the attitude to Time in at least three (3) works we have discussed so far in this course. You might consider the way time is imaged in Chain of Being imagery (visual or verbal), in portraits of Queen Elizabeth, in Richard II (remember Richard's final soliloquy ends with the extended image of himself as a clock, 5.5.49-60), in Emblems, such as George Wither's "As soone, as wee to bee, begunne; We did beginne, to be Undone," or in Spenser's Garden of Adonis episode of The Faerie Queene. These suggested passages/images should not be considered limiting; you need not choose from only them. One thought: as you think about attitudes and representations of Time, you might also think about Change.

2) In his rallying Agamemnon, the commander of the Greek army, Ulysses declares, "Degree being vizarded, / Th'unworthiest shows as fairly in the mask." Discuss "maskedness" or "seeming" in at least three (3) works, i.e., images and/or texts, we have discussed so far in this course. Works that seem (pun intended) worthy of consideration in addition to Ulysses's speech are: portraits of Queen Elizabeth, perspective pictures (such as the Ambassadors picture), Richard II (the status of "truth" in the playworld), Wither's Frontispiece (which he "claims" came back all wrong), and The Faerie Queene (for instance, the discrepancy between the "dinted" armor of the Redcross Knight and the fact that "armes till that time did he never wield"). What, one might ask, is "true" or "real" in these works, and what is the status and function of maskedness?

3) In the Rainbow Portrait, Queen Elizabeth is represented as a wise, virginal, and beautiful lady, as an all-knowing, pure, and beautiful monarch, and as plentiful, paradisal, and beautiful landscape of England. John of Gaunt in Richard II also speaks of England as a garden, specifically a "demi-paradise" (2.1.42) and England is further allegorized as a garden in the play through the episode with the gardeners in 3.4.24-107 (other allusions to the land of England or to Nature abound in the play; these are just two prominent instances). Finally, Spenser images not only England but all of the world as a garden in the Garden of Adonis episode of The Faerie Queene. Discuss the role of "Nature" in three (3) works we have discussed so far in the course. How is Nature represented? Does Nature mean the same thing to all people in these works? Is there something particularly English about Nature, or about the view of Nature, as it is represented in these works? You do not have to answer all these questions–indeed, you might make up some of your own–they are offered here only to provoke thought.