Week Two

1. For the first paragraph of your second essay, you will be writing a paragraph in which you draw conclusions from the opening lines of a monologue from a Shakespeare play.  You are to imagine the lines being spoken by a nobleman, and if you recognize the lines and know the play, do not use this outside knowledge to support your claims, and above all, do not do any research to assist you (though you may look up individual words if you need to!).  The first paragraph should contain only conclusions that you personally can draw from the lines given!  Tell as much as you can about the speaker of these lines: his personality, relationship to others, attitude toward his situation, intelligence, attitude toward himself.  Give specific references to support your claim, and make conclusions about how this makes you feel about the character.

Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this son of York;
And all the clouds that lowered upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths,
Our bruisèd arms hung up for monuments,
Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
Grim-visaged war hath smoothed his wrinkled front,
And now, instead of mounting barbèd steeds
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,
He capers nimbly in a lady’s chamber
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.
But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks
Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;
I, that am rudely stamped, and want love’s majesty
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;
I, that am curtailed of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling Nature,
Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them–
Why I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to see my shadow in the sun
And descant on mine own deformity.

2. The monologue, spoken by Shakespeare’s Richard III (though he is not yet Richard III, but Richard of Gloucester, when he speaks these lines), concludes with these lines:

And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determinèd to prove a villain
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,
By drunk prophecies, libels, and dreams,
To set my brother Clarence and the king
In deadly hate the one against the other;
And if King Edward be as true and just
As I am subtle, false, and treacherous,
This day should Clarence closely be mewed up
About a prophecy which says that “G”
Of Edward’s heirs the murderer shall be.
Dive, thoughts, down to my soul — here Clarence comes!

Considering these lines, what can you now say about this character that you could not say before?  Using these lines, write your second paragraph giving specific examples of new, and clearer, information about the character.

3. Drawing from your two paragraphs, what can you conclude about induction as a mode of logical thought?  What problems and limitations does it have?  What use does it have?  How does it relate to deduction?  Cover these questions as far as they are productive and the responses flow naturally out of your own writing and thought in the first two paragraphs.