LSA Course Guide

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Class Detail:

WN 2013
English Language and Literature
ENGLISH 368 - Shakespeare's Plays: The Jacobean Years
Section 001
Beyond Hamlet

Credits:

Requirements & Distribution:

Other Course Info:

Repeatability:

May not be repeated for credit.

Cross-Listed Classes:

MEMS 368 - Shakespeare II, Section 001

Primary Instructor:

Williams,Ralph G

(real time availability for all sections)

This course will follow Shakespeare’s career as a dramatist from the point he reached the height of his dramatic powers until his retirement from the theatre: from Hamlet to The Tempest, then. The thematic focus of discussion will be Shakespeare’s representation of family relations, and, more particularly, his insistent representation of the forces of eros and eris—desire and revenge.

Plays we shall read will include one very problemmatic “comedy” Measure for Measure; the great tragedies Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, and Antony and Cleopatra,; one “Roman” play, Coriolanus; and two “romances,” The Winter’s Tale and the consummately rich The Tempest.

For those who have not had a chance to study Shakespeare’s early career, and especially for those for whom this course must be their only (shudder!) college course devoted to Shakespeare, I will offer optional additional lectures on one history play and one earlier comedy.

Course Requirements:

Consistent presence at lecture and section meeting; lively engagement in discussion, two essays (around 6 pp. each), a midterm and a final examination.

Course Syllabi
Syllabi are available to current LSA students. IMPORTANT: These syllabi are provided to give students a general idea about the courses, as offered by LSA departments and programs in prior academic terms. The syllabi do not necessarily reflect the assignments, sequence of course materials, and/or course expectations that the faculty and departments/programs have for these same courses in the current and/or future terms.

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Textbooks/Other Materials (data maintained by department in Wolverine Access)

Note:

This system does not allow me to list the book which we shall use: it is The Norton Shakespeare, second edition, edited by Greenblatt and others. I wish each student to have access to all of Shakespeare's works. Those who used the volume containing the Earlier Shakespeare may add on the volume with the later plays, just so each has a copy of the complete works. The Norton is super in its scholarship, but it is a challenge to read because of the thinness of the paper and the way text leaks through. Another fine publication, not so up-to-date in scholarship but sound and easier to read (though not to carry!) is the Riverside Shakespeare. Students may use that, or the Arden edition of individual plays.