ENGL 117

Spring 2025 All Classes

All Classes

Shakespeare on Film

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Credit: 3 hours.

Explores the ongoing reinterpretation and appropriation of Shakespeare plays in twentieth- and twenty-first century film. Expect to read around five plays and analyze two productions of each play, and to consider how Shakespeare can be transformed to meet different cultural and contextual demands of the screen. Lecture and discussion.

Same as MACS 117.

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

Humanities – Lit & Arts

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ENGL 117 class schedule data for spring 2025
	CRN	Type	Section	Time	Day	Location	Instructor	Section Details
	43490	Lecture-Discussion	S	2:00PM -3:15PM	MW	148 Armory	Stevens, A	Part of Term: 1 Date Range: 01/21/25-05/07/25 Degree Notes: Humanities - Lit & Arts course. Section Info: SP25 ENGL 117 - Shakespeare on Film - Andrea Stevens - This version of ENGL 117 Shakespeare on Film focuses on what we might call ‘queer’ film adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays (and, in one case, of Christopher Marlowe’s): Ten Things I Hate About You (Taming of the Shrew); She’s the Man (Twelfth Night); Were the World Mine (Midsummer Night’s Dream); Private Romeo (Romeo and Juliet); My Own Private Idaho (Henry IV Part 1); and finally, Edward II (Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II). With the exception of the first two films, which address an ostensibly straight teen audience, each film places Shakespearean plots or motifs within narratives about same-sex desire. The plays will be read and discussed in full in order to prepare for the screening (in other words, equal class time will be devoted to the plays as to the films). What scripts for living (and dreaming) do these plays, and these films, offer us in 2025? As we discuss how the films adapt their Shakespearean sources, we’ll consider the forms of queer life, desire, and attachment that they imagine. How do these films ‘read’ the Shakespearean or Marlovian original – that is, do the films illuminate possibilities already present in the original text, or do they suggest radical new directions for the Shakespearean dramatic narrative? When is the early modern play itself more ‘radical’ than the adaptation? You will screen the films on your own and the instructor will clarify how to access and view each of the films (shorter clips will be shown in class). Assignments will be appropriate to the 100-level of the class. A prior knowledge of Shakespeare is helpful but not necessary.