L314 16298 LATE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE
Jerry Findley

1:00p-2:15p TR (30 students) 3 cr. A&H

Shakespeare, like many of his contemporaries, depicts the continuities and discontinuities between sexual desire and love. Using this as a thematic focus, we will look at the role genre plays in five of the seven plays for the course: Twelfth Night (festive comedy), Othello (domestic tragedy), Measure for Measure (problem comedy), Antony and Cleopatra (roman history), and Winter’s Tale (late romance). For the two additional plays, Macbeth and King Lear, we will focus on continuities and discontinuities between domestic and political rule, the role of kingship, and succession. Throughout the course, we will look at the political and social changes at the end of Elizabeth’s reign and the beginning of James’, and the differences between writing and producing plays for the public theater and the private theater. Class is a mix of lecture and discussion, relying heavily on close reading and explication of Shakespeare’s language.

Requirements: A mid-term, a final, two essays, and weekly quizzes to assure that students attend class with their reading well prepared.