Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Study of poetry, prose, and multimedia from the Early Modern period (c. 1500 – 1700). Topics may include Renaissance humanism, responses to the Reformation, the rise of print culture, period-specific shapes of gender, individual author studies, and other key topics. This course may be repeated for credit if a different topic is taught.

COURSE DETAILS:

"Paranoia and Puppet masters": Early Modern political drama 

“O happy thee that never saw the court” – John Webster

Many early modern dramatists had a deep interest in political themes and ideas, especially power, tyranny, court domination, and autocracy, an interest they linked to their other interest, grotesque violence. They approached politics as dramatists, but they took from Roman historians -- especially Tacitus, translated into English in precisely this era -- a vision of the court as a spider web of manipulation, corruption and deceit.

We will read parts of Tacitus's Annals (supplied by me; see below) with its vivid presentation of court viciousness, and its exposure of the workings of state power and puppet masters, hidden motives, violence, and the resultant paranoia. A short selection from Tacitus will set the stage, and then we will turn to Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy, Middleton's The Revenger's Tragedy, Shakespeare's Hamlet, and Webster's The Duchess of Malfi. Like Tacitus, these dramatists present an Orwellian world full of ducal and princely corruption, dominated by surveillance and ruthlessness.

Photocopies of the Tacitus and important articles on the early modern court will be provided by me (probably no more than ten dollars in total) or posted. I will use Canvas Announcements for important updates, but the course will be in person. The course syllabus will tell you what to read and so will I, in class. Please acquire the books online or from a local bookstore. The Spanish Tragedy will be our first text.

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING:

REQUIRED READING NOTES: