Introductory description

EN3D7-30 Shakespeare: Text and Performance, Now and Then

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.

Unit 1 (Weeks 1-5)
Shakespeare: Hamlet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo and Juliet, Titus Andronicus.
Marlowe: Tamburlaine the Great, Part One; Dr Faustus (Read the B-Text)
Lecturers and seminars range across these plays in the first five. After reading week we will be adding (in most weeks) one new play a week in the following three Units:
UNIT 2 (weeks 7-10, Autumn Term): KINDS OF HISTORY
7 - Richard II
8 - Henry IV, Part 1
9 - Antony and Cleopatra
10 - King Lear
UNIT 3 (weeks 1-4, Spring Term): COMEDIES
1 - Two Gentlemen of Verona
2 - Twelfth Night
3 - Measure for Measure
4- Troilus and Cressida
UNIT 4 (week 5, and 7-10, Spring Term): TRAGEDY TO/AND ROMANCE
5 - Othello
7 - Macbeth
8 - Coriolanus
9 - The Winter’s Tale
10 - Tempest

Learning outcomes

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

• Formulate their own essay titles and creative projects in a way that prepares them for the type of independent research undertaken at postgraduate level
• Have consolidated their skills in reading narrative, poetry and drama
• Comment illuminatingly on a passage of dramatic poetry
• Analyse the dramatic structure, appearance and effect of a scene
• Comment on the ideas in a play and the way they are presented
• Know enough about Elizabethan and Jacobean conditions of performance to think about how the dramatists use the resources of the stage and how the ensemble nature of theatrical companies influenced play composition and production
• Have sufficient experience of live and film performances of the plays to be able to talk about the impact of particular scenes today
• Know a group of plays well enough to understand how the separate scenes and speeches of the play contribute to the whole
• Know some plays by Shakespeare, Marlowe and Jonson/Webster/Middleton so that they can address the issue of connections and dependencies between them
• Have some critical awareness of the traditions of Shakespeare criticism
• Use their knowledge of Shakespeare to think about problems which concern them
• Have the chance to respond creatively to the works of Shakespeare and his contemporaries and to submit this response in the form of a creative project to be assessed
• Understand how some of the major issues and themes dramatised in Shakespeare’s plays – love, war, sexuality, religion, law, civilization, race, etc – function in an early modern context while continuing to challenge readers and spectators today.

Indicative reading list

Generic Reading lists can be found in Talis

Subject specific skills

No subject specific skills defined for this module.

Transferable skills

No transferable skills defined for this module.