Fall 2008

E 321 • Shakespeare: Selected Plays

Course Description

In this course, we will read plays across Shakespeare's career, including Richard II, The Merchant of Venice, Henry IV Part One, As You Like It, Hamlet, King Lear, and The Tempest, as well as selected sonnets. We will study these texts for their formal complexity, for their engagement with ideas in their historical moments and across time, for a sense of Shakespeare's development as a dramatist and poet, and for an understanding of how such questions work with respect to performance and print publication. Our ultimate goal will be to investigate how Shakespeare's powerful imaginative worlds were created and made public.

Grading Policy

Preparation, attendance, and participation are absolutely necessary.
Paper 1: 20%
Paper 2: 25%
Close readings: 10%
Group project: 10%
Midterm exam: 15%
Final exam: 20%

Texts

The Complete Works of Shakespeare, edited by David Bevington and published by Longman.
As You Like It, edited by Juliet Dusinberre and published by Arden Shakespeare.

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