English 117B

Other Readings and Media

Shakespeare, W.: The Norton Shakespeare

Description

In this course we will read all the plays conventionally attributed to the second half of Shakespeare?s career, beginning with Hamlet and ending with The Tempest. This period includes all the so-called great tragedies (Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth) and some others that are sometimes considered not quite tragedies or not quite great (Timon of Athens, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus), the so-called problem plays (Troilus and Cressida, All?s Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure) and the so-called late romances (Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter?s Tale, The Tempest); it does not include Romeo and Juliet, the history plays, and the comedies (for those you need 117A or 117S). My lectures will tend to emphasize Shakespeare?s reworking of race, gender, sexuality, and the family in these plays, but I hope that the classroom will be a place of lively exchange, in which you feel free to challenge my ideas and to develop your own interests. In addition to a final exam and several required papers of varying lengths, you may be asked to work on a speech and a short scene in small groups to help you understand some aspects of Shakespeare?s verse and his theatrical medium.