Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Examines literature and language within specific social, cultural, geographical, and textual environments to explore the mutually informing relationship between history and text. May be further organized by historical period, genre, or critical approach. Breadth-Humanities.

COURSE DETAILS:

The Place of the Past: Staging History

The vast majority of people in early modern England could not read, and this meant that a large percentage of the population knew little history. In the words of historian Daniel Woolf, “for most ordinary people, the Creation, the Flood, and the story of Christ were much more familiar historical landmarks than the Norman Conquest or Magna Carta.” And so history plays were immensely popular, especially in the 16^th century. In this course we will examine how playwrights represented history – ancient, foreign, and domestic – on the stage and speculate on the social effects those representations had in their time.

 

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

• an understanding of English drama of the Early Modern period;
• a knowledge the conventions of the public theatre in this period;
• a knowledge of the theoretical and critical methodologies that underpin the study of Early Modern drama;
• an overview of key writings and themes in English drama of the Early Modern period;
• individual authors' writing.

Grading

Materials

MATERIALS + SUPPLIES:

 I have ordered a copy of Christopher Marlowe's plays through the SFU Bookstore. You may use any 21st-century editions of William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Richard II, 1 Henry IV, and Henry V. Many versions are available through Amazon and Indigo. 

REQUIRED READING NOTES: