By Scene’s editors

A MadLib! Finals are a drag, but scene has your back for Shakespeare: Histories & Tragedies. We’ve already written your paper — just fill in the blanks and you’re good to go.

Make It New: An Exploration of Shakeseare’s Vital _________ (Oblique Reference to TF’s hotness) Poetics

Professor David Scott Kastan

TF: David Currell

ENGL 201, Shakespeare: Histories & Tragedies

By _________ (full name with middle initial)

In renowned British playwright William Shakespeare’s _________ (title of play) and “Hamlet,” the role of the oppressed _________ (women or a minority) functions to highlight the tragic juxtaposition of _________ (plural noun) and _________ (abstract noun). The aforementioned playwright signals the reification of _________ (trope/cliché) through the neoplatonic ideals of Art and Beauty. But the question remains: What is the role of violence in the heteronormative? Is it merely, as some would argue, the lingua franca of a people in that milieu, or is it a sort of _________ (noun), an evanescent nothing? In the words of Oscar Wilde, “all bad poetry is sincere.” But one must ask oneself, _________ (self-referential question involving the word “presuppose”)? In the next five to 12 pages what shall be proven is the following: _________ (thesis sentence; for inspiration see sample theses from Princeton Review’s AP English guide).

Towards the climax of “Hamlet,” Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, introspectively utters, “To be, or not to be: that is the question: / Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer” (Act 3, Scene 1). Interrogating this excerpt from “Hamlet,” we witness the Prince of Denmark’s obvious Oedipal suppression in light of his fears of _________ (women or a minority, from above). Clearly, Hamlet is not Citizen Kane. Shakespeare’s precocious use of proto-Freudian, proto-_________ (20th-century Hegelian philosopher) discourses is misleading, however. In _________ (the other play, from above), he problematizes such virtuosic juggling of the three balls of psychology, philosophy and philology. In fact, he rereads his own relationship to Richard Burbage.

Richard Burbage was a _________ (woman or a minority). In Shakespeare’s view, _________________________________ (it’s up to you from here. Standbys include: tangents on the impossibility of Knowing, long indented passages from Hamlet, unwarranted comparisons to modern sitcoms, extended references to Judith Butler).

In the end, one would be justified in arguing _________ (reiteration of thesis). It is also legitimate to believe _________ (reiteration of thesis, inverted). And yet it is impossible to ignore _____ (reiteration of thesis, in subjunctive). Obviously, _________ (reiteration of thesis, in Latin). But in reality, _________ (reiteration of thesis, in italics). Indeed, Nietzsche said it best, “Harold Bloom is dead.”