4:00p-5:15 TR (82) 3 cr.
We will read 10-12 of Shakespeare's plays, paying particular attention
to his development as
an artist and the relation of his plays to 16th and 17th century
English culture. The
emphasis in the class, in fact, will be upon recovering as much as we
can, through the plays
and other sources, about the circumstances--political, social,
material--in which the plays
were written and performed. There will be a final examination; in
addition, there will be
nigh-weekly very short writing assignments ("microthemes"), two of
which will be revised to
be longer analytic papers (3-5 pages). In addition to serving as
drafts for the longer
papers, the microtheme assignments will be designed expressly to
prepare you for class
discussion (very important) and the examination.