There is only one core text for this class, and that is Shakespeare’s play The Tragedy of Hamlet. Other texts, for example, Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, will be considered along the way, but our center of consideration and discussion remains Shakespeare’s monumental work for the theater. Seminar meetings will begin with close—very close—readings, and we will proceed very carefully, cautiously and analytically. Students will be encouraged to focus their attention not only on the language of the play, but also on the language’s malleability for stage interpretation and performance, most especially so as the complexity of the text moves through time, place, stage history and changing fashions of critical interpretation. Video screenings of specific productions of the play are an integral part of the semester’s work. Students should count on more or less one video screening per week, and these are scheduled to take place outside of our class meetings. There is therefore a strong commitment of time in order to complete the requirements for this course.

Students should be prepared to read—and in many cases reread-- the entire play on their own no later than the second class meeting. From that point on, we begin looking at the text closely, but this will only make sense if students have an acquaintance with the scope and design of the work as a whole.

Please note that class attendance is a requirement for this course.