Writing #1 -- Write a one- to two-page explanation of how something that you have read in Hamer or Hughes-Hallet has influenced the way that you understand one or more of the primary texts that we have read so far. This written explanation may overlap significantly with the points that you make in your presentation.

Writing #2 -- In the last writing exercise, you used an idea from secondary criticism to illuminate a rereading of a primary text. The objectives of this assignment are: (1) to practice integrating quotations from primary texts with your own commentary; and (2) to consolidate what you have observed in the pre-modern texts that we have read into useful generalizations about the representation of Cleopatra therein.

Write a 3- to 4-page account of what you find most salient about the depiction of Cleopatra in Plutarch and two other works that we have read this term (i.e., Horace, Propertius, Boccaccio, Chaucer, or even Octavius's speech in Dio Cassius). You may stress either differences or similarities.

Excerpts from Horace and Propertius.

Thesis. Since this piece is a formal essay, it should have a thesis, which will organize the scope of the material that you are presenting and direct your readers to what you find most important about it. The point here is not to hammer at an argument as if against an unsympathetic reader, but to demonstrate your claim in gently persuasive terms. Listed below are a few suggestions of the kind of topic around which you might form a thesis:

• Cleopatra is scapegoated in all of these texts. How is that scapegoating done? What does it rely upon or assume? What does it accomplish?
• How is Cleopatra described? What seems to be the essence of her character here?
• How does the description of Cleopatra as a woman compare to the descriptions of other women, such as Fulvia or Octavia? What role are they all said to play -- individually or collectively -- in the reported events? Do they resolve into types? (Remember that these women appear here in works that are not primarily about them.) What is the rhetorical function of the female characters vis-à-vis Antony?
• How is Cleopatra as an Oriental described? What do the signifiers "Egyptian" and "Queen" seem to mean here? How does her Egyptian or Oriental identification relate to her identity as a woman?
• How and when is Cleopatra admired or celebrated by these writers? How do those moments relate to other, less-flattering moments in these texts?

Quotations. Before you begin writing, you should select and collect the passages that you are going to include in your paper. (You might even type them up so that they are ready for you to use.) These will be your linchpins. Handling quotations is a challenge; but selecting and responding to the ideas of another is crucial to any kind of dialogue and to most kinds of thinking.  

Your strategy should be:

Set-up -- Identify the speaker or source of the quotation and supply whatever context that your readers might need.

Quote -- If your quotation is over three lines long, use an indented block quotation.

Comment -- Tell your readers what they should see in your quotation.

Never let the primary text have the final word. Always respond to quotations.

For quotations within sentences, use this format:  

Caesar claimed that "Cleopatra had brought [Antonius] beside himself by her charms and amorous poisons" (Plutarch 344).  

Put your interpolations in brackets.  Put source and page into parentheses at the end of the sentence but before the final period. For more details on how to cite sources, see Citing Your Sources.

Writing #3

Write a 4- to 5-page paper reflecting on the events that lead to the double death of Antony and Cleopatra in Shakespeare's play with an eye toward explaining how Cleopatra is constructed as a character.  You may cite lines from the anywhere in the play, but you will probably want to pay particular attention to 3.13, 4.13, and 4.14 in addition to the suicide scenes themselves.

Depending on the emphasis and organization of your essay, you may wish to consider some of the following questions.  How much dramatic "truth" is there in what Antony says of Cleopatra in his vicious ranting?  What does it tell us that even he turns on her?  Does she, in fact, betray him, or no; and how does that determine our attitude toward both of them?  How does the "news" of her death reach Antony?  Who is to blame? And what do we learn from comparing how this detail is handled in Shakespeare to what we see in Plutarch? How do other characters understand or represent her in these final scenes, and how do we weigh their words?  How does Cleopatra's death conclude the construction of her character?  (And how does it compare with Antony's?)  Don't shy away from contradictions.  

Finally, another note on quotations.  Draw your conclusions directly from the text and cite it as much as you can (refering to act, scene, and line numbers, for example:  3.13.12-14, for Act 3, Scene 13, lines 12-14).  But remember:  Comment on your quotations.  Do not assume that the text speaks for itself.  Always tell your readers what you think the language means, even if it seems obvious to you.  Explain everything.  Never let the text have the last word, if you can help it.  

You should take a look at how Michael Neill cites the text in his introduction for a model of the citation format that you should use for short quotations (within sentences) and block quotations (usually three or more lines). Block quotations must always be followed by detailed commentary.

Writing Tips

Writing #4

Write a 4- to 5-page paper describing how Cecil B. DeMille's film Cleopatra (1934) at various points invites us either to identify with, or to revile Cleopatra in comparison to how Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra does the same.  When does she seem as irresistible as Caesar and Antony are supposed to find her?  When does she seem threatening?  How does the film negotiate our alternating identification with Antony and Cleopatra?  You should pay particular attention to what kind of Cleopatra -- what kind of "bad" woman -- each work seems to present to us.  Keep in mind the very different social and political contexts of these works as we have discussed them in class (you may cite Hamer if you wish).  Insofar as DeMille's Cleopatra offers us, in part, an image of a woman whose political and erotic power is at times undeniably admirable, how does the film undermine or contain that power?  Is there anything admirable in Shakespeare's Cleopatra?  Other related questions:  When is the film's flagrant anti-feminism ironic?  And when does this anti-feminism function seriously?  How do we understand or respond to the sexual "taboos" that Cleopatra seems to offer?  You might even wish to consider how the film's displacement of racial "otherness" from the "Egyptian" Cleopatra and her court onto the semitic-looking Octavian (as he is cast in the film) and onto the King of Judea seems intended to indicate who the villains are. In other words, how does "race" seem intended to direct audience sympathies?  (Recall all those blonde waiting-women and "African" men-servants).  Concentrate primarily on the film, but use Shakespeare's play for comparison as much as you can.  

There are surely many different ways of approaching this question, and you should feel free to do it in the way that most interests you.

If you like you may check my viewing notes for the film against your own.

Writing #5

Web Reviews, History and Mass Culture, in class

Writing #6

This writing assignment has two parts: one creative, one critical.

• Part I: Creative Select a passage from Dryden's translation of Plutarch -- either from the The Life of Julius Caesar or the The Life of Marc Antony -- which you should place as the epigraph to your piece. Then write a 4- to 5-page (maximum) creative treatment of some part of "Cleopatra's story" that is related in some way to the quoted passage.

Since this is a creative assignment, I am giving you complete freedom to write whatever you wish: a play, a dialogue, a long poem (like Lucan's Pharsalia Book X or Chaucer's The Legend of Cleopatra), a short story, a diary, a dream, an illustrated meditation (using pictures from Foreman's book, film stills, or the web), a critical reverie (like Cixous), a romance, a comedy, a tragedy. I am only asking that you draw on your knowledge of the tradition and that you make it rich and interesting, something that we would all want to read. Your piece may exactly correspond to the passage that you quote from Dryden's Plutarch -- imaginatively filling in the gaps if it is a discrete topos -- or may simply grow out of an idea expressed in Dryden's Plutarch. Your piece may also run directly contrary to the passage as you find it in Plutarch. In any case, your piece should have some kind of direct critical or thematic relation to that passage from which it derives a significant measure of its meaning. You may, of course, incorporate bits from anything else that we have read. (Note: you must include an epigraph from Dryden's Plutarch, but you may also use a sort of "counterpoint" epigraph from another work along with it.) Remember, the rest is up to you. I would rather that you not ask for my approval of something that you might like to do. Follow your imagination, your learning, and your best judgment. The restrictions are only as they appear above. You could even choose to write about one of the other characters in Cleopatra's story and not Cleopatra at all.

• Part II, Critical After you have all completed your creative pieces, I will redistribute them among you all, and you will each write a 3- to 4-page essay on your assigned work in the context of the tradition of Cleopatra's representation. You should treat this assignment as you would any other critical essay and treat the author and his or her work the way you would approach any other primary text. Explain what you understand to be the strategies of the piece. Make explicit what the writer seems to be doing. Quote and comment on selected passages. Analyze how it responds to its "source" in Plutarch. Identify allusions to or affiliations with other works that we have read.

At the end of this exercise, both your creative pieces and your essays together will be published on our webpage. If you would like to use images from books, films, or the web, I will help you prepare them and show you how to do it yourself for the future.