ENL 3334 Spring 2022 Yu

This class is designed to increase your enjoyment and understanding of Shakespeare’s work through a close reading of the texts in relation to their social and historical settings of the Renaissance or the early modern period in England. Throughout the semester, we will cover four dramatic genres of Shakespeare’s texts¬—comedy, history, tragedy, romance—and one poetic genre—sonnet. In addition to Shakespeare’s texts, we will also read his contemporaneous writers’ prose narratives used by Shakespeare as source materials and watch modern performances of Shakespeare’s work. With these materials in different media, we will also discuss how a text could be transmediated from prose narratives to dramatic texts, and then to dramatic performances on stage and on film.

This class will be based on class discussions, so students are expected to read assigned texts before coming to class and participate in class discussions. Throughout the semester, students will be required to write weekly response papers, a close reading essay, and a final research paper.

This class meets the pre-1800 requirement for LMC majors.