ENG 4333 - Spring 2026 - Bourus

This class is designed to increase your enjoyment and understanding of Shakespeare’s work through a close reading of the texts in relation to performance of the plays, their social and historical settings, and the development of the plays as dramatic performances, on stage and on film. We will cover only a few of Shakespeare’s 43 extant plays and three books of poetry, but we will examine the broad spectrum across which Shakespeare wrote: sonnets, comedy, romance, history, and tragedy. In taking this approach, we will necessarily also examine William Shakespeare, the man, and the cultural milieu of the Early Modern Period in which he wrote. Performance is key to understanding Shakespeare, so we will watch films of staged performances and also filmed adaptations, and we will consider the differences between what the author wrote and these alternate performance genres.