ENGL4320: Shakespeare I: Selected Works (45794)

Iyengar, Sujata

MWF 9:10 AM

Park Hall 144

  • This upper-division English class introduces students to the life, times, and selected works of playwright, poet,  actor-manager, and businessman William Shakespeare (1564-1616). It may use in-person, remote (Zoom) and asynchronous elements depending on what is most appropriate for our learning.
  • We'll investigate the plays on both page and stage, watching and reading the works, as available. Should it prove safe and accessible to attend live theatre, students will be asked to attend a live performance. If we are still in the throes of the pandemic, we will watch recorded live-streamed productions of the plays intended for the small screen instead. Later in the semester we'll look at some of the different approaches that critics, directors, actors, and artists have taken to interpret these works -- from feature film to contemporary theory to vlogs to material objects.

Prerequisites: 

Two 2000-level ENGL classes

Requirements:

TBC, but you can anticipate collaborative in-class and remote assignments, a "flipped" classroom for some of the time, and regular reading and viewing quizzes as well as traditional 2500-word thesis-driven papers that use textual support, reader-friendly organization and elegant prose to make a non-obvious argument about our materials. 

Materials (NB: Subject to change, depending on live performance schedules)

 

SHAKESPEAREAN PLAY-SCRIPTS (Books), Folger Shakespeare Library editions, ed. Barbara Mowat and Paul Worthen (Simon & Schuster)

  • Romeo and Juliet, ISBN13: 9781451621709
  • Much Ado About Nothing, ISBN13: 9781501146305
  • Hamlet, ISBN13: 9781451669411
  • Twelfth Night, ISBN13: 9781982122492
  • Othello, ISBN13: 9781501146299
  • King Lear, ISBN13: 9781501118111
  • Pericles ISBN13: 9780743273299
  • The Tempest, ISBN13: 9781501130014

PLAY-SCRIPT (book): Desdemona, by Toni Morrison and Rokia Traouré, Oberon Books, ISBN: 9781849433891, this edition necessary

NOVEL (book): Spring, by Ali Smith, Anchor Books, used is fine

LIVE, LIVE-STREAMING, or TIME-LIMITED PERFORMANCES: TBC

RECORDED STREAMING PERFORMANCES: 

  • Stratford (ONT) Shakespeare Festival, Hamlet (2016), available streaming for free through the UGA Libraries' Films on Demand database
  • Cheek by Jowl, France and UK: Pericles, Prince of Tyre (2018), free password-protected recording provided by subscription.

COURSE OUTLINE (subject to change)

UNIT 0: SYLLABUS AND STUDY TIPS 

Syllabus and Course Outline

Writing and Study Tips

UNIT 1: SHAKESPEARE'S THEATRES, THEN AND NOW

Shakespeare's Life 

Shakespeare's Early Modern Theatres

Romeo and Juliet

Watching Remote, Small-Screen Stage Performances

Much Ado About Nothing

UNIT 2: EVERYDAY EARLY MODERN LIFE

Twelfth Night

Early Modern Sex and Gender

Hamlet

Early Modern Objects

Modern and Postmodern Hamlet Objects

UNIT 3:  SHAKESPEARE'S AFTERLIVES

Othello

Shakespeare and Appropriation

Desdemona

Black Feminist Shakespeares

Pericles

Shakespeare's Co-authors

Spring

Shakespeare Across the World