ENGL 218

Summer 2017 Part of Term S2

Part of Term S2
(8 week) Jun 12-Aug 3

Introduction to Shakespeare

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Credit: 3 hours.

Representative readings of Shakespeare's drama and poetry in the context of his age, with emphasis on major plays; selections vary from section to section. Does not fulfill Shakespeare requirement for the English major.

Prerequisite: Completion of the Composition I requirement.

This course satisfies the General Education Criteria in Fall 2022 for:

Humanities – Lit & Arts

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ENGL 218 class schedule data for summer 2017
	CRN	Type	Section	Time	Day	Location	Instructor	Section Details
	38673	Lecture-Discussion	X	12:30PM -1:45PM	MTWR	119 English Building	Stevens, A	Part of Term: S2 Date Range: 06/12/17-08/03/17 Degree Notes: Humanities – Lit & Arts course. Section Info: English 218 ‘Introduction to Shakespeare’ is designed for students who wish to become more familiar with Shakespeare’s plays; the class also satisfies the pre-1800 requirement for English and Teaching of English majors as well as for CW majors. Teaching of English majors are welcome to adapt assignments to help build Shakespeare-related teaching materials suitable for the middle- or high-school classroom; CW majors are also welcome to adapt at least one writing assignment to incorporate the writing of original poetry or fiction. Over the course of the summer session we’ll read eight plays by Shakespeare: Titus Andronicus; The Taming of the Shrew; Romeo and Juliet; Midsummer Night’s Dream; the Q1 Hamlet (this is the so-called “bad” version of Hamlet: “To be, or not to be, aye there’s the point”); The Merchant of Venice; Macbeth; and finally, Othello. I have also assigned Tiffany Stern’s Making Shakespeare from Stage to Page; I’ll be drawing from that text in order to give you some insight into Shakespeare-the-theater-professional rather than Shakespeare-the-Bard—in other words, William Shakespeare was an actor and a playwright with a financial stake in the theater company to which he was attached. His fellow actors, the physical spaces of the Globe and the Blackfriars theaters, and any number of material factors necessarily shaped the plays he wrote. Expect each class meeting to include a range of activities, from lecture to discussion to group work to the watching of film clips and, to be sure, the active blocking and performing of scenes from the plays (no experience required or necessary!) Evaluation will be based on consistent and engaged participation; one group performance project; one mid-term and one final examination; and two or three short written assignments, at least one of which can be adapted to meet students’ individual creative and professional goals. COURSE AIMS: By the course’s conclusion we’ll have discussed how the plays reflect the material conditions of Shakespeare’s theater; we will have learned to see the play-text as offering a range of different options for performance; we will have read the plays for the performance cues suggested by, and embedded in, the plays’ language; and finally (and most important) we will have asked ourselves how and why Shakespeare’s plays continue to be revised, recast, and reinterpreted. Fulfils Shakespeare requirement for Creative Writing major.