English 117S

Shakespeare

Other Readings and Media

One of the following: Shakespeare: The Complete Works, ed. Alfred Harbage, et al. (out of print); The Complete Pelican Shakespeare, ed. Steven Orgell and A.R. Branmuller; The Riverside Shakespeare, ed. G.B. Evans, et al.; The Complete Works, ed. David Bevington; Signet Classic Shakespeare, ed. Sylvan Barnett, et al. (out of print); The Norton Shakespeare, ed. Stephen Greenblatt, et al.; The Oxford Shakespeare, ed. Stanley Wells, et al.  Also required:  McDonald, R.: The Bedford Companion to Shakespeare, 2nd Edition

Description

This course will focus on Shakespeare's plays as plays, as moment-to-moment actions on the minds of audiences. I will take up some other topics related to the plays--Shakespeare's stage, printing practices, socio- and political contexts (and so on)--but these will be few and feel like digressions. We will mainly think about the plays and what they do.

I'm not yet sure which plays I'll lecture on, but the list will likely include: Twelfth Night, Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, King Lear, Richard II, The Winter's Tale, The Merchant of Venice, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest, Romeo and Juliet, 1 Henry IV, and 2 Henry IV.

Three papers, the third in lieu of a final examination.

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