Document Type

Syllabus

Publication Date

Spring 2024

Course Description

If you listen, you will hear three echoes, as the "Stage Manager" addresses the "Critics" in the Preface of W. H. Auden's The Sea and the Mirror. Well, who in his own backyard Has not opened his heart to the smiling Secret he cannot quote? Which goes to show that the Bard Was sober when he wrote That this world of fact we love Is unsubstantial stuff: All the rest is silence On the other side of the wall; And the silence ripeness, And the ripeness all. In Auden's lines, you will have heard "something rich and strange" as echoes of The Tempest, of Hamlet, of King Lear are gathered up, conflated, transmuted. Prospero, shortly before abjuring his rough magic, compares the dissolution of "the great globe itself"' to that of his "insubstantial pageant," explaining: We are such stuff, As dreams are made on, and our little life, Is rounded with a sleep. (The Tempest 4.1.156-58) Only seconds later come Hamlet's last words, in the elusive acknowledgment that "the rest is silence." And finally, Edgar muses: Men must endure; Their going hence even as their coming hither; Ripeness is all.... (King Lear 5.2.9-11) May Auden's haunting tribute to Shakespeare's art serve as a paradigm for the experience I hope we can share this semester. Tracing Shakespeare's own development, we will watch his early work "become," as T. S. Eliot might have said, "renewed, transfigured, ni another pattern." Departing from, even while returning to, early subjects and themes, Shakespeare kept what he needed, changed what he wanted changed; he expanded, condensed, rejected, inverted, paralleled, multiplied; he shaped and reshaped, with a versatility worthy of the poet and playwright whom we have learned to exalt, in echo of Ben Jonson, as "not of an age, but for all time." As current critical theory reminds us, however, to be part of one's age is both salutary and inevitable, so we will study the ways in which Shakespearean drama raises questions that derive from Elizabethan and Jacobean concerns: whether in comedies, histories, tragedies, or romances, politics and domesticity continually intersect; the public weal and the private self engage each other in lively dialogue; and gender, no less than genre, compels attention.

The Sonnets testify to Shakespeare's keen awareness that Time ruthlessly devours and destroys; "and yet," the poet dared to proclaim, "to times in hope my verse shall stand." Our very presence in this course vindicates his hope, even as it allows us in turn to "give a local habitation and a name" to the shapes wrought by "the poet's pen." As sensitive readers and writers, we can respond critically and imaginatively to a dramatic achieve mentonles"strange and admirable" than the magic of a midsummer's night. May we rise to the challenge of doing justice to the "something of great constancy" that is Shakespeare's art.

I will count on all of you to read the plays more than once, to analyze them closely, to take advantage of videos and films, and to read a number of scholarly articles on individual plays. Since I firmly believe in the value of an exchange of ideas, I hope that you will be willing to talk honestly with one another. Don't be afraid to take risks by asking questions or venturing answers you might not be sure about; don't let shyness take over; don't balk at challenges. I'd like to think of myself as a responsible member of the course who will let you grapple with potentially intractable thoughts even as I'll try to be as helpful as possible to ensure the success of our joint intellectual endeavor. I very much hope that you will view our class as a group of stimulating and supportive friends with whom you happen to meet regularly every week. Individually as well as collectively, we can ask questions, arrive at some answers, and —why not—-recognize anew in Shakespeare's language, even in his eloquently dramatic silences, "the achieve of, the mastery of the thing." My hope, always, is that you will find intellectual stimulation in the works we will read and that you will be engaged with the topics of your essays. I see myself not as a pontificator but as a supportive critic and friend who wants all of you to delight in your reading and to discover your own voice in your writing. I would like each of you to emerge from this course not only with a genuine appreciation for Shakespeare but also with respect for the power of language--Shakespeare's as well as your own. I hope you will enjoy the course.

In the meantime, To thee and thy company I bid A hearty welcome. (The Tempest .5 1. 110-11)

Student Outcomes

You will be able to:
1. Understand Shakespeare's language and appreciate its power.
2. Read works closely applying literary concepts and terms as you analyze, annotate, and discuss Shakespeare's plays.

3. Appreciate Shakespeare's versatility in a variety of genres; comedy, history, tragedy, "problem play," and romance.
4. Communicate ideas through discussion in a collaborative setting.
5. View writing as a process and gain confidence as a writer.
6. Practice sharpening your argument and polishing your prose so that anyone— including you—will enjoy reading what you write.
7. Integrate secondary sources responsibly into the writing of your research paper.
8. Understand why we are still reading Shakespeare more than four centuries after his death.

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