Where to from here?

After getting some feedback on my rough draft, I think I have a slightly better idea where to go from here.



The first step, obviously, is to finish the paper. I have one or two productions to talk about still, and I need to add a conclusion and a transition between the sections about Nazi and Postwar productions. The transition, though, relies rather strongly on my thesis, which has its own problems (see below).

Every person who's looked at my paper has said that I need to include some analysis of the primary text. I'm writing primarily about production history (as opposed to analysis of the text itself), so I didn't think I needed to do so. Nevertheless, the fact that every person has brought it up means it's an issue. Including a paragraph like this would also help my paper out tremendously--I can use it to provide background for people who aren't familiar with the play, and also to establish my credibility ("I'm very familiar with the play, therefore, what I'm talking about is correct").
I think what I'll do is I'll include a paragraph or two about the way I interpret Shylock (i.e. he's not antisemitic, he's complicated), and talk about the flexibility in the text, like I did when I returned to the original text. I'm not entirely sure where to place this, though: at the beginning seems the most logical choice, but I feel that the introduction and the first body paragraph flow together rather well, and interjecting another though there might break that. I'll need to take another look at it--maybe I cam make it work somehow...

The next part I'm most worried about is my thesis (which Nyssa pointed out). When I first started writing this draft, I thought I was writing about two similar eras in the play's history, and that I could use this to compare the two (i.e., the play, both before and after the war, was defined by the holocaust). However, I've since realized that they are fundamentally different: though the Nazi-era productions were used as antisemitic propaganda, they were not "Defined" by the Holocaust in the same way that postwar productions have been.
Since they're so different, I'm thinking I might be able to compare and contrast the two. Where to go from there, though, I'm not sure. I have an appointment with Professor Burton today, and I'm going to ask him about it.