SEE BELOW FOR PROPOSED TEACHING TIMES FOR 2022/23 - PLEASE NOTE THAT THESE COULD BE SUBJECT TO CHANGE AT SHORT NOTICE:
Lecture	Monday 2:00 - 3:00
Seminars
Wed 10:30 - 12
TUES 13:00 - 14:30
TUES 15:00 - 16:30

Information for 2022-2023

The module will be available to both second year and finalist students next year.

Convenor: Dr Teresa Grant

Teaching methods

1 x 1 hour lecture weekly; 1 x 1.5 hour seminar weekly.

Module Description

We will survey a wide range of early modern plays by Shakespeare and some of his most significant contemporaries such as, typically, Marlowe, Middleton and Webster. We'll explore the ways in which some of the major issues and themes dramatised in Shakespeare’s plays – for instance, love, war, sexuality, religion, law, race – function in an early modern context while continuing to challenge readers and spectators today. We'll read Shakespeare alongside other plays which compare and contrast in their treatment of these themes, to consider what is both typical and special about his work in its context. We'll consider how Shakespeare’s career developed (from early to late comedy, through history and tragedy) and investigate how later collaborators (directors, actors, adapters, audiences and readers) transformed the plays to be especially meaningful for them.

Module aims

The module aims are to read and analyse a wide range of Shakespeare's plays in different genres and periods of his career and a selection of the plays of near-contemporary dramatists, in order to compare and contrast Shakespearean and non-Shakespearean early modern drama. Students will critically analyse the plays: as literature; as texts for performance; and in their historical contexts (religious, social and political). You will also gain an understanding of a wide range of critical responses to Shakespeare and early modern drama and evaluate some of these in depth in your assessments.

Learning outcomes and Assessments

Level 5 (Y2)Link opens in a new window<Link opens in a new window

Level 6 (Y3)Link opens in a new window<Link opens in a new window

Outline Syllabus

Autumn term:

1. Introduction to the Module (Teresa Grant)
2. Hamlet (Natalya Din-Kariuki)
3. Lear (Ursula Clayton)
4. Macbeth (TG)
5. Othello (ND)
6. Reading Week
7. Antony and Cleopatra (TG)
8. Duchess of Malfi and The White Devil (TG)
9. The Tempest (ND)
10. The Winter's Tale (TG)

Spring Term

1. A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Steve Purcell)
2. Galatea (SP)
3. Chaste Maid in Cheapside (SP)
4. Twelfth Night (SP)
5. Measure for Measure (SP)
6. Reading Week
7. The Merchant of Venice and The Jew of Malta (SP)
8. 1 Henry IV (UC)
9. Edward II and Richard II (SP)
10. Richard III (UC)

Reading list

Essential Primary texts (to buy, ideally):

Lyly, John. Galatea. Edited by Leah Scragg. Revels Student Editions. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2012).

Marlowe, Christopher. Tamburlaine, parts I and II: Doctor Faustus, A- and B-texts ; The Jew of Malta ; Edward II. Edited by David M. Bevington and Eric Rasmussen. Oxford World's Classics. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).

Shakespeare, William. The Norton Shakespeare. Third edition. Edited by S. Greenblatt et al. (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2016).

Webster, John. The White Devil ; the Duchess of Malfi ; The Devil's Law-Case ; A Cure for a Cuckold. Edited by René Weis. Oxford World's Classics. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).

You may wish to purchase this book too if you want a print copy, but it is available via the University Library on Drama Online: Thomas Middleton, A Chaste Maid in Cheapside. Edited by Alan Brissenden. New Mermaids (London: Bloomsbury, 2002).

Summer Reading: Please note that it is our expectation that students will return after the summer having read the 6 non-Shakespearean plays and made a good start on Shakespeare. There are some weeks during term where you will be expected to read two plays, and all the lectures will assume that you have knowledge of the non-Shakespearean plays, so if you do only one thing to prepare for the module this should be it. Please don't ignore this advice!