Iyengar, Sujata
MWF 10:20 AM
Park Hall 144
Shakespeare in Context
This in-person, synchronous, split-level (graduate/upper-level undergraduate) course introduces students to the work, historical performance and publishing environments, and approaches to literary criticism of the world playwright William Shakespeare (1564-1616).
Typically I will teach each play or group of plays in a module that includes an introduction to the play's plot, characters, and poetics; a recording of a twentieth- or twenty-first-century performance on stage or screen; and a glimpse into a particular "school" of criticism within Shakespeare Studies and what those critics have had to say about the play.
For example, we will start with
Love's Labor's Lost and an introduction to the printing process in Shakespeare's day.
and
Much Ado About Nothing and an introduction to the Shakespearean stage.
Our performances for this unit will be the RSC's 2014 pairing of these plays, set to the First World War era, with Much Ado controversially retitled Love's Labor's Won, one of Shakespeare's lost plays.
After these early and middle comedies we move to one of Shakespeare's historical sequences, the so-called "first tetralogy" of English kings, comprising
Richard II and ecocritical Shakespeare criticism
The First and Second Parts of King Henry IV and "new historical" and "cultural materialist" Shakespeare criticism
Henry V and critical race studies in Shakespeare criticism
Our performances for this unit will be the BBC television mini-series The Hollow Crown, starring Ben Whishaw, Tom Hiddleston, Sophie Okonedo, and other luminaries of the British screen.
Next we move to Shakespeare's "problem comedy," Measure for Measure, which we will consider through the work of feminist Shakespeare criticism. I'm still looking for a good recording of this play and will update as I find one.
Finally, we'll read Shakespeare's second-shortest tragedy -- Macbeth -- alongside readings in postcolonial Shakespeare.
For this final play, students may watch any film of Macbeth, although I warn you that I will not be watching the Roman Polanski one (I haven't "canceled" him; it's just too gory for me). My favorite (FWIW) of recent years is Macbeth (2021) starring Denzel Washington.
I'll also be looking for local theatres to update their schedules; if a local theatre is doing a production of one of these plays, I might change the play list to accommodate.
Book: Arden Shakespeare Third Series Complete Works
If you are a graduate student or considering graduate study, or if you prefer carring around individual books rather than one massive tome, please purchase the Arden Third Series individual volumes rather than the complete works.
NB: You will also need to pay for access to some of our performances via streaming services if the library doesn't have them. Please budget three to seven dollars per play, just in case.