History
and Literature of the Theatre 1 Other Items
This is where I put all the stuff that I don't
have any other place for. Also, you never know when there
might be some surprise extra credit, to reward people who check regularly.
- Theatre Analysis
Game
- Erik Melvin's Neoclassicism poem
- Extra Credit
1. Do some internet research
on any theatrical topic within our time period. It's probably better if we're
not covering it in class. The smaller the better, i.e. a specific performer
or theatre or play, if it's not too famous. If there are over twenty web sites
on something, get more specific. Do a literature review of the web sites.
In other words, for each site write two or three sentences about what it covers
and how well it does it. You should have at least five sites for each topic.
Look at the sites on our links page about evaluating internet sites. You can
do three topics for up to five points each on your final exam.
2 . Read one of the following books and write a three page review of it. These
books characterize one of the time periods we're studying particularly well.
Note, if possible, any relationship to the culture and theatre discussed in
class. It's worth a ten on a quiz, and I'll drop another low quiz grade, plus
add five points to the exam of your choice. I've included my impressions of
each book from my book journal (no nerd jokes, please).
- Household Gods by Judith Tarr and Harry Turtledove. A woman wishes
to be transported to the Roman Empire, and is. She must learn to survive
and function, and fight her own political correctness, which at times
gets intrusive (to the reader). Even more fascinating is how she copes
when she gets back. Life's problems don't seem so great.
- Live from Golgotha: The Gospel According to Gore Vidal by Gore
Vidal. Time travel enables people to visit biblical times. Timothy turns
out to be the only guy whose writing is safe from the Hacker, who turns
out to be Jesus, in the future, rewriting history. Confusing to follow,
but a fascinating philosophy about historiography. How does history get
written? How does it get retold?
- Timeline by Michael Crichton. Less obvious than many of his other
books. A company develops a time machine (really parallel universes) and
sends some historians back to the middle ages in France, where they escape
one death threat after another. Like always, Crichton's science and history
are detailed and impeccable. Like always, it reads like a screenplay.
A real page turner with nice detail. Can't wait for the movie.
- Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco. Wasn't as difficult as I expected,
based on Eco's other books. Interesting debates about monks' love of learning
and books versus their faith. A series of deaths in an Abbey is all connected
to that dilemma. The 'hero' - William - a sort of 14th century Sherlock
Holmes. Of course I liked the parts about the labyrinth and the library.
- Perfume by Patrick Suskind, translated by John E. Woods. A boy
in Pre-Revolutionary France with essentially a super-human sense of smell
turns to murder to try to gather the scent of the soul of a virgin. Nice
sensory impressions of the time period.
- An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears. Restoration England.
The same story of a murder told from four points of view. You get the
idea of different class lives during the time.
- The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. This one of the best
books I've ever read. It won the Booker Prize. An Indian family and Untouchables.
The mother has an affair with one - it ruins the family. Roy presents
all the aftermath first, we get the big events last. Beautiful writing.
The language becomes remarkably easy to follow. Not historical really,
but an excellent portrait of a culture very alien to most of us.
- The Memory Cathedral by Jack Dann. Subtitled A Secret History
of Leonardo Da Vinci, this is a fictionalized account of a year of Leonardo's
life. What if his flying machine had worked? Where did he go in that year
we know nothing about? Although it's fiction, it contains a pretty good
characterization of 16th century Italian life.
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