English 430 and 560: Shakespeare

Course Objectives To introduce students to the principal genres of Shakespeare's drama To encourage familiarity with Shakespeare's dominant motifs and themes To facilitate learning through participation, including reading aloud, group acting, and individual research To investigate the modern relevance of Shakespeare's drama To introduce Shakespeare's literary achievement within the social and political contexts of his contemporary environment.

Course Requirements reading 8-9 plays 2 Research Papers 2 Exams online quizzes and discussion

Tentative Reading List:

• A Midsummer Night's Dream
• King Henry the Fourth, Part One
• Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
• As You Like It
• King Lear
• Othello
• The Winter's Tale
• The Tempest

This class is designed as an introduction to Shakespeare and his work. My primary objectives for this class are twofold: I'd like students to become comfortable with representative Shakespearean plays, but above and beyond that I'd like students to acquire the skills that will allow them to enjoy Shakespeare in performance.

Shakespeare's plays are, first, scripts for the stage, and only second are they literary texts. We'll be doing a lot of impromptu readings in class, and we'll be talking about our own ideas for staging and presentation. Don't worry if you don't have any theater experience -- you soon will!

This question, therefore, should be at the front of your minds throughout the semester: why bother reading Shakespeare? His work isn't the chore that many make it out to be, but it is challenging, and it is 400 years old -- so what's the point? There are many legitimate answers to that question; hopefully we'll find a few of them along the way.