Shakespeare a-la-carte: Sampling the Bard

• Week 1 
  Brief biography of Shakespeare, then a brief overview of Shakespeare’s England. Then we will define “tragedy” and “comedy” in the light of Shakespeare’s development of the genres. To begin, we move to the famous “balcony scene” in Romeo and Juliet, then the duel between Romeo and Tybalt, and finally the closing scene in the Capulets’ tomb.
• Week 2
  We’ll examine scenes from Hamlet, including the famous “To be or not to be” soliloquy, then the scene between Hamlet and his mother in her bedroom, and the graveyard scene (“Alas, poor Yorick”). Next to Julius Caesar and Caesar’s death (“et tu, Brute?”). We’ll then review the dagger scene in Macbeth (“Is this a dagger I see before me?”) and Macbeth’s final soliloquy (“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow”). 
• Week 3
  We will look at three scenes from King Lear, starting with the division of the kingdom scene in Act 1, then the storm scene in Act 3 followed by the tragic finale. Turning our attention to Othello, we focus on the villain Iago’s famous soliloquy; then, the death of Desdemona. We conclude the tragedies with the wonderful scene of the entrance of Cleopatra from Act 2 of Antony and Cleopatra, followed by her dramatic suicide with the asp in Act 5.
• Week 4
  Approaching Shakespeare’s comedies, we will start with three great “recognition scenes”: the end scenes of The Comedy of Errors, Much Ado About Nothing and Twelfth Night. Then we will look at the extraordinary scene from Taming of the Shrew in which Petruchio first meets Kate, followed by the final scene of the play.
• Week 5
  We’ll start with the marvellous “mechanicals” scene from the end of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (“Pyramus and Thisbe”). We move to The Merchant of Venice and the wonderful speech of Shylock (“Hath not a Jew eyes?”), followed by the iconic courtroom scene, where Portia delivers her great speech “The quality of mercy is not strained.” To finish, we will examine the casket scene from the end of the play, in which Portia’s suitors must choose between three caskets to win her hand in marriage.
• Week 6
  We start with As You Like It: the famous wrestling scene from Act 1, in which Rosalind falls in love with Orlando; then the “seven ages of man” soliloquy spoken by the melancholy Jaques; followed by the iconic wedding scene that closes the play. We return to Twelfth Night for the famous “gulling” of Malvolio and to Much Ado for another “gulling”: that of Beatrice and Benedict. Finally, we end with two hilarious scenes from The Merry Wives of Windsor: Falstaff’s humiliating laundry basket scene, and the final scene where he is tormented by “fairies” and publicly shamed.

By the end of the course, you should be able to:

• Differentiate between Shakespeare’s tragic and comic plays
• Appreciate the power and meaning of individual scenes within the plays
• Identify key themes arising from a careful review of select scenes

• Lectures
• Participation in discussions
  
• Supplementary resources accessed through Canvas
  
• Reflective essay (applicable only to certificate students)

No textbook is required. We will provide all course materials online.