Midterm Exam

Preparing

To prepare, review:

• Readings
• Your journal entries
• Study guides
• My journal-entry comments
• Your class notes
• Terms and "lenses" (see below)
• My PowerPoints

Coverage, Format

The midterm will cover readings, discussions, lectures, technical terms, study guides, starting with the opening class of the semester and continuing through Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus.

• You won't be required to know exact dates, but a basic grasp of chronology of plays, and of how that chronology relates to key historical events, will be important.

Outside texts, issues, etc. I am sometimes asked if you can discuss texts, concepts, or issues not dealt with in our class. Well, sure, but the focus of your writing must still be on texts, concepts, and issues you have explored for this class.

Grammar, style, spelling, argumentation. I don't expect quite the same level of writing that I would for a formal paper, but we need at this point to be able to spell correctly play titles, playwright's and character's names, important terms. Arguments need to be defended with evidence. You must cite the texts (title, author) you are discussing.

Academic honesty. For clarity on the academic-honesty dimension of this exam, see the Syllabus.

Format. You will have the full class period for the test, though I plan to structure it as an hour-long affair. Expect two types of questions:

1. Shorter answers. 40 points, 25 minutes total (several of these; you'll have a selection to choose from).
• Two or more sentences for each response
• Responses focused on factual matters and seeking concrete examples. Know your plays, know your terms!
• Questions/prompts like this:
  • What is [term]?
  • [character name] appears in which three plays that we have read? (Supply playwright, play.) Identify and define what role or function that character takes on in each of those plays
  • Examples (for illustration alone, not things you need to know):
    • QUESTION: What is a parabasis?
    • ANSWER: It's a section of an Old Comedy where the chorus addresses the audience directly, often speaking for the playwright. In Aristophanes' Clouds, the parabasis has the chorus claim that Aristophanes, unlike other comic playwrights, makes "tasteful" jokes about public figures
    • QUESTION: Who is Cleon?
    • ANSWER: A leading politician in Athens in the 420s BCE, he is a target of satire in Aristophanes' Knights and Wasps. In Knights, the Cleon character is one of Demos' slaves; in Wasps, Cleon is Philocleon's favorite politician

Essay. 60 points, 35 minutes. Just one question/prompt, no choice, but an opportunity for open-ended reflection. Here's how the question/prompt starts (not the whole thing):

In Antigone, Interrupted, Bonnie Honig explores the idea that, just as the character Antigone finds herself interrupted in Sophocles' play of that name, so, too, do various modern interpretations "interrupt" (hide or suppress) important aspects — gender-related, political, social, etc. —of the play. Honig therefore seeks to give Antigone a voice that speaks to us.

Please discuss how various interpretive models ("lenses") studied so far give voice to (enrich our understanding of) or "interrupt" (distract us from) important aspects of the tragedies that we have read for this class up till this point. (As with the lenses that Honig discusses, so is it possible for the ones we've studied both to interrupt and to shed light on a given play.)

Note that that's not the whole question, you can't just sketch out in advance or memorize or write on your hand an entire essay to bring to the exam. You will, though, need to know your lenses, your plays and other texts, your terms. There's a list of lenses on slide 21, Oedipus at Colonus PPT.

Grading Criteria

Provided I can read your writing and make sense of your sentences, I will grade on content alone. BUT I MUST BE ABLE TO MAKE SENSE OF YOUR SENTENCES. Still, spelling of names, places, titles does count.

• Stick to the theme of the question
• Argue coherently
• Cite evidence as per above
• Making connections is good! — provided they're valid
• Aim for nuance, avoid exaggeration. Anticipate and address, as appropriate, views alternative to yours. Be conscious of the limits of your knowledge and evidence. So, (likely) points off for things like:
  • "Persians proves that Aeschylus always had scenes bringing back the dead" — really??
  • "Aristotle has nothing of value to tell us about tragedy" — well, okay, maybe, but how are you so sure? How are you going to prove it?
  • "All tragedy. . ." the word "all" scares me to death! When is it ever accurate? We're talking here about blanket generalizations like, "Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus proves that the ancient Greeks were pessimists." Well, maybe they were (??), but how does one play prove that?
  • Any sentence with the words "totally," "absolutely," or similar

Terms/Concepts Relevant to Material to Be Tested

Part of your review will be focused on the following terms. For definitions, see bingdev Terms page.