Introductory description

EN2G7-30 Remaking Shakespeare

Module web page

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

The primary texts will vary from year to year. Each term will focus on adaptations of a particular
Shakespearean play: Term 1's primary text will be at the tutor's discretion, while Term 2's will be decided upon by the students during Term 1. Some of the sessions during Term 2 will be led by
students. An indicative syllabus focusing on Troilus and Cressida in Term 1 might work as follows:

TERM 1
Week 1: Introduction: students explore Troilus and Cressida and note textual cruxes, problems,
puzzles
Week 2: Shakespeare's sources: Homer, Ovid, Chaucer, Chapman (using critical material and Early
English Books Online)
Week 3: Early adaptations: Dryden’s Troilus and Cressida, or Truth Found Too Late (1679); Troilus
in 18th and 19th century visual art (using the Folger Shakespeare Library's Digital Image
Collection)
Week 4: Rediscovery, 1898-1913: early German productions; William Poel's 1912 production
(using reviews, critical accounts, and copies from Poel's prompt-book)
Week 5: Troilus in New York: Joseph Papp’s production for the New York Shakespeare Festival
(1965) and subsequent rock musical adaptation (1969) (using Papp's own essay on the play and
copies of archival material)
Week 7: Troilus on TV: the BBC TV Shakespeare version (1981), Shakespeare in Perspective (1981)
and an episode of Fortunes of War (1987) (students will view the former two online using the BBC
Shakespeare Archive; a screening of the DVD of the latter will be organised)
Week 8: Translating Troilus: Ngākau Toa’s Maori adaptation A Toroihi rāua ko Kāhiri (2012) (using
online subtitled video at GlobePlayer.tv, critical accounts, and a screening of the 2013 television
documentary about the production, The Road to the Globe)
Week 9: Deconstructing Troilus: The Wooster Group's 2012 co-production with the RSC and
subsequent adaptation, Cry Trojans! (2013) (using critical material and the Wooster Group's own
online resources)
Week 10: Research workshop: students will be encouraged to identify research possibilities and
share research strategies for their forthcoming essays.
[Adaptations in other media worth considering include Christopher Morley's The Trojan Horse
(1937, novel), Louis MacNeice's 'The Stygian Banks' (1948, poem), or Eric Shanower's Age of
Bronze Volume 3B: Betrayal Part 2 (2013, graphic novel).]

TERM 2
Students will be given the opportunity during Term 1 to discuss which Shakespearean play they
wish to study in Term 2, and the class should agree upon a single play. In pairs or threes, each
student will pick an adaptation of this play and prepare to co-lead a session on it during Term 2.
By Week 8 of Term 1, students should send the tutor a proposal detailing which adaptation(s)
they wish to focus on in Term 2, and the reading and preparation tasks they plan to set their
classmates (a price limit should be set for any materials requiring purchase). The tutor should
keep practical considerations in mind (screenings, photocopies, price of purchase, workload) before approving these plans. A schedule for the student-led sessions will be drawn up at the end of Term 1, probably (though not necessarily) organising the adaptations in chronological order.

Week 1: students explore their chosen play and note textual cruxes, problems, puzzles
Week 2: students explore Shakespeare's sources for their chosen play Weeks 3-5: student-led sessions
Weeks 7-9: student-led sessions
Week 10: review lesson.

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Analyse a number of Shakespearean adaptations with reference to their social and artistic contexts.
• Demonstrate a good sense of the different cultural and political uses to which the name ‘Shakespeare’ and associated texts are put.
• Demonstrate a broad understanding of the process of adaptation.
• Identify and use a range of scholarly and archival resources appropriate to the study of Shakespearean adaptations.
• Work in collaboration with other students to analyse a particular Shakespearean adaptation through reading, discussion and practice.
• Develop written and oral communication skills appropriate to Intermediate-level work, and reflect upon the different forms through which critical analysis might be articulated.

Indicative reading list

• Aebischer, P., Esche, E. J. & Wheale, N. [eds] (2003) Remaking Shakespeare: Performance
  Across Media, Genres and Cultures, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Bate, J. & Jackson, R. [eds] (2001) The Oxford Illustrated History of Shakespeare on Stage, Oxford University Press.
• Bennett, S. (1996) Performing Nostalgia: Shifting Shakespeare and the Contemporary Past, London: Routledge.
• Billington, M. [ed.] (2000) Directors’ Shakespeare, London: Nick Hern
• Bristol, M. D. (1990) Shakespeare’s America, America’s Shakespeare, London, Routledge.
• Bristol, M., McLuskie, K. & Holmes, C. [eds] (2001) Shakespeare and Modern Theatre: The Performance of Modernity, London: Routledge.
• Brown, J. R. (2002) Shakespeare and the Theatrical Event, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Buhler, S. M. (2002) Shakespeare in the Cinema: Ocular Proof, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
• Bulman, J. C. & Coursen, H. R. [eds] (1988) Shakespeare on Television: An Anthology of Essays and Reviews, University Press of New England.
• Bulman, J. C. (1996) Shakespeare, Theory and Performance, London: Routledge.
• Burnett, M. (2007) Filming Shakespeare in the Global Marketplace, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan
• Burnett, M. & Wray, R. [eds] (2000), Shakespeare, Film, Fin de Siècle, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Burt, R. (2002) Shakespeare After Mass Media, Basingstoke: palgrave Macmillan.
• Burt, R. & Boose, L. E. (2003) [eds] Shakespeare, the Movie, II: Popularizing the plays on film, TV, video, and DVD, London: Routledge.
• Davies, A. & Wells, S. [eds] (1994) Shakespeare and the Moving Image: The Plays on Film and Television, Cambridge University Press.
• Desmet, C. & Sawyer, R. [eds] (1999) Shakespeare and Appropriation, London: Routledge.
• Dobson, M. (1992) The Making of the National Poet: Shakespeare, Adaptation and Authorship, Oxford: Clarendon.
• Fischlin, D. & Fortier, M. [eds] (2000) Adaptations of Shakespeare, London: Routledge.
• Hatchuel, S. (2008) Shakespeare, from Stage to Screen, Cambridge University Press.
• Henderson, D. [ed.] (2005) A Concise Companion to Shakespeare on Screen, Oxford: Blackwell.
• Hindle, M. (2007) Studying Shakespeare on Film, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Hodgdon, B. & Worthen, W. B. [eds] (2005) A Companion to Shakespeare and Performance, Oxford: Blackwell.
• Holderness, G. (2001) Cultural Shakespeare: Essays in the Shakespeare Myth, Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press.
• Holderness, G. (2001) Visual Shakespeare: Essays in Film and Television, University of Hertfordshire Press.
• Holland, P (1997) English Shakespeares: Shakespeare on the English Stage in the 1990s, Cambridge University Press.
• Howard, T. (2007) Women as Hamlet: Performance and Interpretation in Theatre, Film and Fiction, Cambridge University Press. .
• Jackson, R. (2007) Shakespeare Films in the Making: Vision, Production and Reception, Cambridge University Press.
• Jackson, R. [ed.] (2007) The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Film, 2nd ed, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Kidnie, M. J. (2005) “Where is Hamlet? Text, Performance, and Adaptation” in Hodgdon, B. & Worthen, W. B. [eds] A Companion to Shakespeare and Performance, Chichester: Blackwell, 101-20.
• Kidnie, M. J. (2009) Shakespeare and the Problem of Adaptation, London: Routledge.
• Lehmann, C. (2002) Shakespeare Remains: Theatre to Film, Early Modern to Postmodern, Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP.
• Marsden, J. I. (1995) The Re-Imagined Text: Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Eighteenth-Century Literary Theory, Lexington: University Press of Kentucky.
• Martin, R. & Scheil, K. W. (2011) Shakespeare/Adaptation/Modern Drama: Essays in Honour of Jill L. Levenson, Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
• Massai, S. [ed.] (2005) World-Wide Shakespeares: Local Appropriations in Film and
• Orkin, M. & Loomba, A. (1998) Post-Colonial Shakespeares, London: Routledge.
• Performance, London: Routledge.
• Prescott, P., Edmondson, P. & Sullivan, E. [eds] (2013) A Year of Shakespeare: Reliving the World Shakespeare Festival, London: Bloomsbury.
• Prescott, P. & Sullivan, E. [eds] (2015) Shakespeare on the Global Stage: Performance and Festivity in the Olympic Year, London: Bloomsbury.
• Purcell, S. (2009) Popular Shakespeare: Simulation and Subversion on the Modern Stage, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Rothwell, K. S. (2004) A History of Shakespeare on Screen: A Century of Film and Television, Cambridge University Press.
• Rutter, C. C. (1988) Clamorous Voices: Shakespeare’s Women Today, London: The Women's Press.
• Rutter, C. C. (2007) Shakespeare and Child’s Play: Performing Lost Boys on Stage and Screen, London: Routledge.
• Schafer, E. (1998) MsDirecting Shakespeare: Women Direct Shakespeare, London: The Women’s Press.
• Shaughnessy, R. (1994) Representing Shakespeare: England, History and the RSC, London: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
• Shaughnessy, R. [ed.] (1998) Shakespeare on Film: Contemporary Critical Essays, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. · Shaughnessy, R. (2002) The Shakespeare Effect: A History of Twentieth Century Performance, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Shaughnessy, R. [ed.] (2007) The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare and Popular Culture, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Taylor, G. (1989) Reinventing Shakespeare: A Cultural History from the Restoration to the

Subject specific skills

No subject specific skills defined for this module.

Transferable skills

No transferable skills defined for this module.