EN2M8/EN3M8: Single-Text Study: The Deep Dive
Hamlet
This is a 15 CAT open module, the topic of which will change annually depending on the convenor.
The topic for 2025/26 is William Shakespeare's Hamlet and takes place in Term 1 only.
This module can be paired with 'EN2M9/3M9 The Deep Dive: Single-Author Study - Shakespeare’s History Cycles' taught by Dr Julian Richards in Term 2 to make a coherent (but unofficial) 30 CATS two-term option that overviews Shakespeare Studies.
Overview
This module will take students through some of the canonical and less familiar works of a single author. The module will consider in detail aspects such as important thematic and stylistic aspects of the chosen author’s work, the chronological development of their writing practice, and their relationship to key historical and literary contexts, as well as assessing trends in the critical and cultural reception of the author’s work. The author studied will change each year, dependent on the research specialisms of the convenor, as will the mode in which you engage with that author’s works across the term. The module would be particularly useful to students doing or considering a dissertation or further study, but will also be of interest generally for its focused exploration.
In 2025/6, the focus will be on William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Printed in three distinct versions at the start of the seventeenth century, this is a play that is textually unstable, but now claims canonical status. Throughout the module, students will learn how to use etymology, historical context, contemporary theory, and literary criticism to set Shakespeare’s ‘wild and whirling words’ in motion, (re)discovering Hamlet’s lost lexicons and newfound implications. From an examination of the play’s ancient roots in the poetry of Epicurean philosopher Lucretius, to an evaluation of the play’s contemporary critical reception, this ‘single-text study’ module offers students the opportunity to become close, critical, creative readers of Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
Teaching
Term 1 Only
1.5 hour weekly seminars
Assessment
Intermediate Year students:
- 1 x Short Piece: Etymology Entries (3 Words) (30%)
- 1 x 2500 word essay or Creative Project with critical reflection of 1,500 words
Final Year students:
- 1 x Short Piece: Etymology Entries (5 Words) (30%)
- 1 x 3500 word essay or Creative Project with critical reflection of 2,000 words
Syllabus
Week 1 - Introduction: ‘how to do things with words’
Week 2 - The Three Hamlets (Q1, Q2, F1)
Week 3 - Source/Parallel Texts I: reading Hamlet through Lucretius
Week 4 - Source/Parallel Texts II: reading Hamlet through Montaigne
Week 5 - Humouring Hamlet I: the early modern body as context
Week 6 - READING WEEK
Week 7 - Humouring Hamlet II: melancholy and madness
Week 8 - The ‘Moore’ Claudius: (Mis)reading Race in Hamlet
Week 9 - Hamlet’s worms: non-human perspectives
Week 10 - Queering Hamlet
Convenor:
Dr Ursula Clayton
