ENL 3334-Fall 2025-Cowan

This course will survey various works of William Shakespeare, including plays and poems. You will be introduced to an array of ideas that all engage in what has been variously dubbed “the esoteric,” or “the occult,” which are umbrella terms for ideas dealing in heterodox conceptualizations of the sacred, including but not limited to magic, Kabballah, alchemy, spiritualism, “shamanism,” intermediary beings, entheogens, tarot, divination, and more. We will analyze the philosophical, political, and aesthetic aspects of these works, asking how Shakespeare utilized heterodox spiritualities as literary devices, how such forms of “occulture” intersect with more mainstream religions and cultures, and how one can define “literary” occultism and/or “occult” literature. Assigned works include: The Tempest, Midsummer Night’s Dream, Macbeth, King Lear, Hamlet, Julius Caesar, The Winter's Tale, Twelfth Night, The Oxford Shakespeare: Complete Sonnets and Poems. In terms of historical methodology, we would also like to ask particular questions: How do social contexts shape literary products? These questions will require us to consider issues of intertextuality, influence, national and world literatures, trans-culturalism, hegemony, and historiography.