This is a take-home exam, to be written in a 70 minute period and submitted in class on Wednesday February 21. Choose one of these three questions to answer in an essay of about 500 words.

1. "For indeed poetry [i.e literature in general] ever sets virtue so

out in her best colors…that one must needs be enamored of her. And of

the contrary part, if evil men come to the stage, they ever go out…so

manacled as they little animate folks to follow them." Sir Philip

Sidney defends the value of poetry, as a means of improving morals

--making virtue attractive and vice repulsive. Either support or take

issue with this claim by reference to one play by Shakespeare, a section

of the King James Bible, and one other work read this quarter.

2. Discuss the theme of lying vs. truth-tellling in three of the

following works: Genesis, Utopia, Ralegh’s "The Lie," Othello

3. Describe ways in which one character is created and developed in the

Bible, a play by Shakespeare, and one other work [see "A paradigm for

literary study]