CMLT-C 693 (#26460): Reshaping Shakespeare for the 20th Century’s
Stage and Screen ~ FIRST EIGHT WEEKS COURSE

Visiting Professor Maria Helena Serôdio ~ 2:30-4:30 MW
(additional evening meetings on Tuesday to see the films and videos)

Playwrights and film directors of the second half of the 20th
century have dealt with the Shakespearean canon to voice and show
different understandings both of Shakespeare’s texts and of
contemporary life. The concepts of tragedy and romance can frame our
debate of three tragedies and a late romance, and in them “violence”
should be thoroughly discussed as a prominent social, political and
artistic strategy.

Thus, Hamlet may be read against the film versions directed by
Laurence Olivier and Kosintzev, but it should also be approached
through the writings of Charles Marowitz’s collage, Tom Stoppard’s
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (play and film) and John
Osborne’s Look Back in Anger. Shakespeare’s King Lear should also be
read against Kurosawa’s film Ran and Edward Bond’s play Lear. Titus
Andronicus should be discussed against Julie Taymour’s film, as well
as The Tempest should be considered side by side with Peter
Greenaway’s Prospero’s Books.

We will study the ways in which literary texts, theatrical
productions and films interact, thus creating different cultural
performances and changing our perspective of the classics. It is
taken for granted that the four plays by Shakespeare on the basis of
this programme have been carefully read in advance: Titus
Andronicus, Hamlet, King Lear, and The Tempest. A complete list of
course readings and films is available in Ballantine 914.
Assignments include three short essays of 5-6 pages to be read and
discussed in the class and a written assignment on the next to the
last day.