Section 1: England Under Henry VIII
Step 1: Watch this lecture introducing this week’s material (9 mins.):
Step 2: Watch this video introducing Henry VIII (7 mins.):
Step 3: Read the first few pages of Chapter 19 of the textbook (pp. 635-645) and the longer excerpt from Thomas More’s Utopia on p. 661.
Step 4: Respond to these questions:
Question 1: If you were creating a Utopia, what ideas from Thomas More would you bring along? What would you do differently?
Question 2: If Hans Holbein painted a portrait of you, what objects would you include in the picture (in your hands or in the background) to represent you?
Question 3: Summarize the impacts Henry VIII had on England.
Section 2: Elizabeth I and Shakespeare’s Sonnets
Step 1: Watch this video introducing Elizabeth I (4 mins.):
Step 2: Watch this video introducing Shakespeare’s Sonnets (12 mins.):
Step 3: Read the next few pages of Chapter 19 of the textbook (pp. 646-651).
Step 4: Respond to the following questions:
Question 1: How do the conventions of the Shakespearean sonnet (the form, meter, etc.) help or hinder it in conveying ideas?
Question 2: What gift does the written word bestow on a person, according to Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 and Edmund Spenser’s Sonnet 75?
Section 3: Shakespeare and the Stage
Step 1: Read the next few pages of Chapter 19 of the textbook (pp. 651-656).
Step 2: Watch this video explaining the plot of Hamlet (8 mins.):
Step 3: Watch this video explaining Act 2, Scene 2 from Hamlet (3 mins.):
Step 4: Watch the soliloquy from Act 2, Scene 2 from Hamlet (2 mins.):
Step 5: Watch this video explaining Act 3, Scene 1 from Hamlet (3 mins.):
Step 6: Watch the soliloquy from Act 3, Scene 1 from Hamlet (4 mins.):
Step 7: Respond to the following questions:
Question 1: What do you get from watching/listening to the scenes from Hamlet that you don’t easily get from reading it on the page? Is there a line that struck you differently?
Question 2: What makes Shakespeare such a master, and Hamlet such a masterpiece?
Section 4: The Western World Gets Bigger
Step 1: Read the last few pages of Chapter 19 of the textbook (pp. 656-659).
Step 2: Respond to the following question:
Question 1: How do you think it would affect a common European person in the 16th century to learn about discoveries in America and discoveries in space?