Description
This course is a cultural poetics of William Shakespeare’s
writing, mostly but not exclusively dramatic. We will begin by thinking about
playgoing in Shakespeare’s London as a social practice, and from there ask what
kinds of cultural work Shakespeare’s plays and other poetry seem to be doing. We
will continuously remind ourselves that Shakespeare was a “popular” poet in the
best possible meaning of that term, and think about what his plays and poetry
might have done for the variegated audiences who originally enjoyed them.
Required Texts and Materials
Requirements
Weekly meditation
Every week you will post an informal reaction essay of ca.
300 words to the class discussion board on our WebCT site. You must post these
by midnight on Monday. You are required to read all the meditations
before class on Tuesday.
Review Essay
You will be assigned a review essay of one of our secondary readings or of a
reading TBA. The paper should be 2 – 3 pages, double spaced, and should
summarize and evaluate the author’s argument, explaining what is useful,
mistaken, or compelling in a particular essay or chapter and why. The week your
review essay is due, you are not required to complete a meditation. You will
also briefly present the essay/chapter you examined to the class.
Scholarly Essay
Your most important written work will be a 15 – 20 page essay, due on Monday,
December 10. I expect that everyone will make time during the semester to
consult with me about the essays.
Course Schedule
[p]: course pack
[r]: reserves
[ld]: library database
[i]: Internet Reading
Week 1: 8/28
Introductions
Week 2: 9/4
Andrew Gurr: Playgoing in Shakespeare’s London
Clifford Geertz, “Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight” [webCT]
Week 3: 9/11
Romeo and Juliet
Ralph Houlbrooke “Chapter 4: The Making of Marriage” from The English Family
1450 – 1700 [p]
Suggested
Peter Stallybrass, “Patriarchal Territories: The Body Enclosed” [r]
Week 4: 9/18
The Taming of the Shrew
Wendy Wall, “Familiarity and Pleasure in the English Household Guide” from
Staging Domesticity [p]
Suggested
Lynda E. Boose: “Scolding Brides and Bridling Scolds: Taming the Woman's Unruly
Member.” [ld]
Week 5: 9/25
Love’s Labour’s Lost
Walter Ong, “Latin Language Study as Renaissance Puberty Right” [r]
Suggested
Mary Ellen Lamb: "Apologizing for Pleasure in Sidney's 'Apology for Poetry'"
[ld]
Week 6: 10/2
The First Part of King Henry IV
Douglas Bruster, “The Structural Transformation of Print” [webCT?]
Suggested
Keith Thomas: “Age and Authority in Early Modern England” Proceedings
of the British Academy 62 (1977 for 1976): 205–48.
Stephen Greenblatt, “Invisible Bullets” in Shakespearean Negotiations, 21
– 65.
Week 7: 10/9
Sonnets 1 – 96
Week 8: 10/16
Sonnets 96 – 154
William Empson: “They that Have Power to Hurt and Will Do None” [r]
Suggested
Stephen Gosson: The School of Abuse [webCT/Google Books]
Week 9: 10/23
Twelfth Night
Orgel, “Nobody’s Perfect: Or Why Did the English Stage Take Boys for Women?” [r]
Suggested
Phyllis Rankin: “A Usable History” [r]
Week 10: 10/30
All's Well that Ends Well
Stone: “Social Mobility in England, 1500-1700.” [ld]
Suggested
Carol Thomas Neely: “Introduction: Wooing, Wedding, and Repenting” from
Broken Nuptials [r]
Week 11: 11/6
Othello
Robert Hornback: “Emblems of Folly in the First Othello” [ld]
Suggested
W.H. Auden: “The Joker in the Deck”
Week 12: 11/13
The Merchant of Venice
Frank Whigham: “Ideology and Class Conduct in The Merchant of Venice” [r]
Suggested
M. Lindsay Kaplan, “Jessica's Mother: Medieval Constructions of Jewish Race and
Gender in The Merchant of Venice” (ShQ 58.1, 2007): 1 – 30 [ld: Project
Muse]
Week 13: 11/20
Antony & Cleopatra
Adelman, Janet. “Making Defect Perfection:Shakespeare and
the One-Sex Model” Enacting Gender on the English Renaissance Stage (pp.
23 – 52).
Week 14: 11/27
A Winter's Tale
“Taking Part: Actors and Audience on the Stage at Blackfriars” [webCT]
Suggested
Roslyn Knustson: “What if There Wasn’t a ‘Blackfriars Repertory’?”" [r]
Week 15: 12/4
The Tempest
Suggested
Allen Carey-Webb. “National and Colonial Education in Shakespeare’s
The Tempest.” [i]
http://extra.shu.ac.uk/emls/05-1/cwebtemp.html
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