English 17

Book List

Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night's Dream; Shakespeare: Henry IV, Part One; Shakespeare: Macbeth; Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet; Shakespeare: Sonnets; Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice; Shakespeare: The Winter's Tale

Description

English 17 offers an introduction to the study of Shakespeare that is intended for students new to the Berkeley English Department. Incoming transfer students, future majors, and non-majors are especially welcome.

The premise of our class (and part of the reason the department requires a Shakespeare class of its majors) is that Shakespeare's texts are remarkably good to think with—remarkably pleasurable, remarkably productive. The class will give sustained attention to about half a dozen major plays and the Sonnets, using them to develop a rich set of themes and ideas as the semester unfolds: ideas about beauty and cruelty, performance and nature, citizenship and individuality, future and past.

We'll devote special attention to developing the skills that will allow us to think most productively with Shakespeare: skills of reading, of close analysis, of reasoned and structured argument, and maybe too some elementary skills of performance.

We will alternate between large-scale lectures on Mondays and Wednesdays, in which I will offer some concepts and arguments as raw material for your thinking; and discussion sections on Fridays, where you, your classmates, and your discussion leader will develop your thinking in conversation and work on techniques for realizing your ideas in writing.

We will start with a number of short assignments focusing on particular skills, which will build up to two medium-sized papers and a final exam.