Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

A study of the works of William Shakespeare performed before 1601. Students may take both ENGL 311 and 313 for credit towards the English major. Students with credit for ENGL 312 may not take this course for further credit without permission of the department.

COURSE DETAILS:

Shakespeare is, today, strongly associated with print, but the plays were originally written to be performed and were only later sold as books. This course will actively compare Shakespeare as a script (an instruction manual for putting on a play) to Shakespeare as visual experience: a spectacle to be witnessed. Each play is paired with a self-referential adaptation—a film, television show, or in one case a comic book—that depicts not just the play but some part of the process of making a play. The adaptations have a variety of origins, from indie film, to Canadian cable TV, and even mainstream comic books. Week by week, we will investigate how they re-present specific problems and address certain questions about producing Shakespeare.

McKeller's Slings and Arrows gently mocks academic approaches to Romeo and Juliet. Taymor's Titus presents Titus Andronicus as a vicious game played by a cruel boy. Looking for Richard argues that Shakespeare belongs to the dramatists rather than the academics and tackles the problem of presenting this complex, historical play to a modern audience. Gaiman's comic-book adaptation of Midsummer Night's Dream looks behind the stage and places real faeries in the audience for Shakespeare's most famous faery story. Finally, Branaugh's Henry V transforms the play's chorus into a museum guide who leads the viewers into history. The goal in each case is to investigate the specific commentaries this adaptations make both on and in keeping with the original texts.

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING: