Spring 2004 Courses
English 140: Shakespeare (Krier)
TR 2:45-4:15
OM 001
In this course we trace the development of Shakespeare's stagecraft and poetic imagination, by reading 7 or 8 plays spanning his entire writing life, along with big passages from the plays we donšt read. We'll look at his handling of theatrical resources, language, characterization, genre (comedies, histories, tragedies and so on). For our focus, we'll study Shakespeare's representations of families, a matter that obsessed him: fraught relationships between fathers and daughters or mothers and sons; foundlings separated from their parents by tempest, shipwreck, and violence; characters at a threshold between adolescence and adulthood, or nostalgic about a golden childhood innocence; sisters, brothers, twins, cousins, uncles, step-parents; conception, birth, the rearing of children, wedding; incest, murderous rivalry; families broken up, families re-united. We'll also do some reading about families: social arrangements for courtship, child-rearing, households, servants. There will be two essays, and once everyone has some resources to think about families in Shakespeare's day, a third piece in which you create your own detailed, fictional family living in some exact year and some exact location of Shakespeare's England. There will also be a final exam. Plays will include A Midsummer Nightšs Dream; Twelfth Night; 1 Henry IV; Macbeth; Hamlet; Pericles; The Winteršs Tale.
This course will be occasionally linked with Professor Ingram's Shakespeare course and Professor Engel's Theater in Performance course. We'll attend a Twin Cities production of Macbeth (required), and any other theatrical riches that come our way. Everyone will need to attend a performance, or view a tape, of each play that wešre reading; wešll have some practice with our own amateur staging and reading of Shakespearešs scenes. No previous experience in Shakespeare, drama, or poetry required--though youšll know a lot about these things by the spring.
Spring 2004 Course Listings
|
