ENL 5227 Summer 2018 Bourus

This is a course for graduate students who, whether or not they are specialists in Shakespeare or Renaissance drama, think that they might have to teach Shakespeare at some point: in a survey of English literature, or a survey of drama, or even as an upper level undergraduate course devoted entirely to Shakespeare. You may have taken Shakespeare courses as an undergraduate, but those courses will not have prepared you to teach it. Consequently, this course will cover some of Shakespeare's most important work in a range of genres (the sonnets, comedies like A Midsummer Night's Dream, Twelfth Night, history plays like Richard II, tragedies like Hamlet, Roman plays like Antony and Cleopatra, problem plays like Measure for Measure, tragicomedies like The Winter's Tale). We will explore a variety of critical approaches, the use of films as critical and pedagogical tools, in-class performance exercises, verse and prose style, analysis of the representation of gender, race, and politics. Since this graduate course will be taught in conjunction with an undergraduate course, graduate students will themselves be expected to teach at least one topic to undergraduates; they will be able to choose plays or approaches they find most interesting, and will be expected to write more sophisticated, better researched responses to the readings.