ENL 3334 Spring 2018 Kim

An introduction to Shakespeare requires us to ask who is Shakespeare. However, one and four hundred years after his death, the question centered on his biographical presence cannot but be answered by asking what is Shakespeare and its textual materiality. In the twenty first century, Shakespeare is theatrically and culturally reinvented from the texts that were produced and circulated in his life time or shortly after his death. This course aims to pursue his authentic textual presence in the early modern theatre industry as a way to understand how Shakespeare has been mediated over the course of posthumous dissemination. To place Shakespeare in the working conditions he complied with, we will read Shakespeare’s plays along with contemporary playwrights’ plays that might have contributed to the genesis of Shakespeare’s plays: Henry VI part 2, The Troublesome Reign of King John, The Life and Death of King John, The True Tragedy of Richard III, The Tragedy of Richard III, The Taming of a Shrew, The Taming of the Shrew, Hamlet, King Leir, King Lear, and The Two Noble Kinsmen.