Write a paper of approximately three pages (no more than five) on a single word that appears in William Shakespeare’s The Tempest or Sir Walter Raleigh’s The Discovery of Guiana and analyze its multiple meanings/functions. (Some suggestions: labour, command, authority, profit, art, shape, wonder, marvel, subject). You should bring to bear upon your analysis of the word relevant other uses of the same word either in the same or in other plays (use concordances).  

You must use the Oxford English Dictionary and a concordance to Shakespeare (e.g. Marvin Spevack, The Harvard Concordance to Shakespeare). I would also like you to look at facsimiles of the early editions (e.g. Charlton Hinman, The First Folio of Shakespeare; Michael J. B. Allen and Kenneth Muir, Shakespeare's Plays in Quarto).

Some available resources include

• Folger Shakespeare Library's First Folio
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• Folger Digital Collections
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• Folger Shakespeare Complete Works
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• (Especially for Raleigh) Early English Books Online

If you choose to use sources beyond this list, you must be careful: some texts are typed in by enthusiasts and not vetted by scholars.

Attach at the end of your paper the relevant photocopies/print outs/PDFs of the passages on your word from the dictionary, the concordance, and the early editions.

This is a primary source/close reading assignment. Do not consult any secondary sources (i.e. criticism). There are concordances to the Bible, many poets, Montaigne, and many novels and plays. To track how other contemporary texts make use of the same word, look at the concordances to, for instance, Marlowe, Donne, Milton or the Bible. (You may also find scholarly editions like the Arden Shakespeare and the New Variorum Shakespeare useful. There are also facsimiles of some early English dictionaries in Butler [English linguistics, 1500-1800 series]).  

Purpose

The main purpose of the assignment is to introduce you to various primary scholarly resources, and to get you to bring them to bear on something as small as a single word. It should also build up your confidence in your ability to analyze language in detail. If the word appears in more than one place in the plays, you may want to pick one or two passages where the appearance seems particularly significant.

When comparing passages in modern vs. folio editions, there may not be such significant changes in the passage you're looking at, but you should be aware of even the smallest of changes—changes in speech prefixes, in punctuation etc. (Not all such changes will be particularly significant, but you should nonetheless be aware of them). Using The Oxford English Dictionary, the early texts on-line, and the concordances, you should find that you have too much material for such a short paper. This means you will have to choose what is most interesting/significant in illuminating the specific passages you are analyzing.

Please keep in mind that this, like all papers, should have an argument. Locating the word’s meanings is only the first step. Please do not simply enumerate the meanings of the word.