Lesson Plan for Week 3: General Thoughts and Notes

Patrick Mooney, TA
Department of English, UC Santa Barbara
English 65LP/Theater 94, Profs. Kearney and Appel
16 and 17 August 2016

Major topics:

1. Administrative issues? Anything?
2. What questions do you have? What has your attention focused on during the last week?
   • Do you want to talk about:
     • Genre?
     • Gender?
     • Elizabethan language, society, culture?
     • Poetic form and terminology?
     • We've covered a lot in the last week. What have you found difficult, intriguing, problematic, revelatory?
3. Let's look at some specific passages:

   • Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
     Men were deceivers ever,
     One foot in sea and one on shore,
     To one thing constant never:
     Then sigh not so, but let them go,
     And be you blithe and bonny,
     Converting all your sounds of woe
     Into Hey nonny, nonny. (II.iii, p. 67)

   • What about Dogberry (et al.) on language and writing?

     • DOGBERRY: First, who think you the most desartless man to be constable?

       FIRST WATCHMAN: Hugh Oatcake, sir, or George Seacoal, for they can both write and read.(3.3.9–12)

       • How does this connect to the logical reasoning processes that Dogberry & Co. exhibit during the rest of the scene? ex:

         [DOGBERRY:] This is your charge: you shall comprehend all vagrom men; you are to big any man stand, in the Prince's name.

         SEACOAL: How if he will not stand?

         DOGBERRY: Why, then, take no note of him, but let him go, and presently call the rest of the watch together and thank God you are rid of a knave.

         VERGES: If he will not stand when he is bidden, he is none of the Prince's subjects.

         DOGBERRY: True, and they are to meddle with none but the Prince's subjects. (3.3.24–34)