ENL 4333 Fall 2020 Bourus

This Summer Intensive class is designed to increase your enjoyment and understanding of Shakespeare’s plays through a close reading of the play 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, but we will examine the broad spectrum across which Shakespeare wrote for a popular audience: 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.

Required Texts: The New Oxford Shakespeare: Modern Critical Edition (which will also give you online access to all of the plays).