Course Description
The plays and poems of Shakespeare, their historical and cultural background, and their continuing significance in interpretation, appropriation, and performance. Intended to help students become informed and intelligent readers and viewers of Shakespeare.
Athena Title
Shakespeare and His World
Prerequisite
ENGL 1102 or ENGL 1102E or ENGL 1103 or ENGL 1050H or ENGL 1060H
Semester Course Offered
Offered every year.
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
•Students will become familiar with the plots, characters, and major themes of a range of Shakespeare's plays and poems and with some basic literary terms necessary for understanding and responding to Shakespeare's works. •Students will learn to read Early Modern English comfortably or even with pleasure and to enjoy viewing performances of the plays on stage or screen. •Students will become familiar with the historical and cultural background of the English Renaissance. •Students will learn to respond orally and in writing to the material that they are studying. •Students may become aware of or even critical of the significance of Shakespeare in twenty-first century culture.
Topical Outline
Each instructor has the freedom to vary the course structure, assignments, and material. •One version of the course might move through a selection of the plays and poems topically, pausing to give students necessary political and historical background. Such a course might begin with a topical unit on Shakespeare's History plays, reading the two parts of Henry IV and Henry V in the context of the Tudor myth and disputes about succession. Next the course might move on to some comedies (such as The Taming of the Shrew, Much About Nothing, Twelfth Night) in the context of questions of female subordination during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. A historical review of the reign of King James might accompany a reading of Othello, Lear, Hamlet, and Macbeth and the course might conclude with material on the emergence of the nuclear family during the period as it considered the parent-child relationships in The Tempest. •Another version of the course might begin with an overview of the English Renaissance before moving into sustained discussion of the plays and poems, organized chronologically, relating them to the known facts about Shakespeare's life and the great political, religious, and literary developments of his time. •Assignments might similarly vary. One instructor might assess students with examinations designed to draw out through short questions the knowledge they have acquired in the course; another might mandate essay examinations to assess students' new skills in discussion and synthesis. All instructors will emphasize class participation and discussion--for instance, by requiring oral presentations, by assigning short response papers or online postings, by requiring frequent quizzes, and/or by requiring group projects or brief performances of scenes.
Syllabus