Shakespeare's Histories and Tragedies
Romeo and Juliet: Study Plan
Your Main Objectives
- To familiarize yourself with critical attitudes to Shakespeare from the Renaissance to the Romantics
- To observe the movement of Romeo and Juliet from comedy to tragedy
- To explore the relative importance of external forces and internal choice in bringing about the tragedy
The Focus of the Written Materials
- Genre: the structure of comedy in tragedy
- Courtly love and patterns of imagery
- The maturation of the young lovers
The Background
- Medieval and Renaissance concepts of order
- Staging the plays
The Tutorial
Since the first tutorial is an introduction to the course, there will be just one tutorial to discuss this play. More detailed information about the questions for discussion at the tutorials will be circulated on the Bulletin Board and at each tutorial.
- Tragedy of the individual, tragedy as social, tragedy as fortune
- Good moments and bad moments in the play
- Staging the play
The Assignment
- You will learn how to sign on to the electronic discussion group that has been set up for this course.
1 Henry IV: Study Plan
Your Main Objectives
- To examine the double plot and the implication of the play's structure in understanding the genre of the play
- To look at the role of women in the world of power politics
- To explore moral directions in the drama
The Focus of the Written Materials
- Politics and the social order (part 2)
- The meaning of honour
- Dramatic and social structure in the play
The Background
- The morality play
- Machiavelli
The Tutorials
There will be two tutorials to discuss 1 Henry IV.
- Questions about the double plot and the role of women
- Questions about moral directions and open endings
The Assignment
- You will be working on your second assignment, an explication of a passage from one of the plays, during this module.
Hamlet: Study Plan
Your Main Objectives
- Reconstruct Hamlet's dilemma in the context of his time
- Explore the relationships between Hamlet and the women in the play
- Explore the political implications of Claudius' actions
- Consider the "universality" of Hamlet
The Focus of the Written Materials
- The paradox of Christian revenge
- More on characterization
- More on the marginal female voice
The Background
- The supernatural; microcosm and macrocosm
- "Shakespeare and the Bush": (re)constructing meaning
The Tutorials
There will be two tutorials to discuss Hamlet.
- More questions about character and characterization; questions about structure
- Questions about language in Hamlet; questions about universal meaning and the reinterpretation of the text
The Assignment
- As you work on this module, you will have a choice of two multimedia assignments: either to use the computer program Shakespeare Director to "block" a scene from Macbeth, or to write a review comaring two video performances of either King Lear or Macbeth.
King Lear: Study Plan
Your Main Objectives
- To see how--and explore why--a comic plot was converted to tragic drama
- To understand the interaction of the two major plots
- To see how the play fits (and fails to fit) conventional norms of dramatic structure
- To understand the differing concepts of "nature" the play explores
- To be aware of the different texts that lie behind the modern edition, and the implication that the differences have in the interpretation of the play
The Focus of the Written Materials
- The folk-tale "love tests"
- Image patterns: seeing and not seeing
- Humanity and the gods
The Background
- The transmission of the text: Quarto and Folio versions compared
- The structure of drama
- Shakespeare's sources and how he changed them
The Tutorials
There will be two tutorials to discuss King Lear.
- Questions about the text and the theory of revision
- Questions about the double plot/the role of the gods
The Assignment
- The next assignment (due while you are working on Macbeth) is a a choice of two multimedia activities: "blocking" a scene from Macbeth on a special computer program, or writing a comparative review of two video performances of King Lear or Hamlet.
Macbeth: Study Plan
Your Main Objectives
- To explore the relationship between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth
- To analyze the qualities you find in Shakespearean tragedy
The Focus of the Written Materials
- "Foul is fair": equivocation and open meaning
- Lady Macbeth
The Background
- Aristotelian, Medieval, and Shakespearean tragedy
The Tutorial
- Questions about fate and choice
- Questions about Shakespearean tragedy
- Questions about the disruption of order in society and nature
The Assignment
- A research essay, situating Shakespeare in the context of his time.
Othello: Study Plan
Your Main Objectives
- To explore historicist and feminist readings of Iago, Desdemona, and Emilia
- To analyze the view each sex in the play has of the other
- To consider Shakespeare's choice of a domestic tragedy with a black protagonist
The Readings
- From Jan Kott, Shakespeare Our Contemporary: Othello in different periods
- From Stephen Greenblatt, Renaissance Self-Fashioning: Iago and improvisation
- From Carol Thomas Neely: "Women and Men in Othello": the strengths and limitations of the women in the play
The Focus of the Commentary
- The vision the men of the play have of women
- Othello's vulnerability
- The tragedy: what does Othello learn?
The Tutorial
There will be two tutorials to discuss this play. More detailed information about the questions for discussion at the tutorials will be circulated on the Bulletin Board.
- Historicity and role-playing; Othello's blackness
- The women in the play; more about tragedy
Antony and Cleopatra: Study Plan
Your Main Objectives
- To observe how earlier critical discussions of the play have been shaped by traditional views both of tragedy and male/female roles
- To reassess the play in your own terms to see if you can find a synthesis of the best of traditional and feminist approaches
- To explore the relationship between Shakespeare's source and his actual use of it in the play
The Readings
- L. T. Fitz, "Egyptian Queens and Male Reviewers: Sexist Attitudes in Antony and Cleopatra.
- Excerpts from Plutarch's "Life of Antony," as translated by Sir Thomas North (1576).
The Focus of the Commentary
- The relationship between criticism and the play, focusing on the three main characters: Caesar, Cleopatra, and Antony
- Shakespeare's use of Plutarch's "Life of Antony"
- An exploration, in character, symbol, place, and language, of the interrelationship between the concerns of Rome and Egypt
The Tutorials
There will be two tutorials on this module. Additional questions will be posted on the Bulletin Board.
- Binaries in Antony and Cleopatra
- Tragedy and the theatre: genre and the metatheatrical in Antony and Cleopatra.
This page last updated on 28 December 2002.
Send queries to Michael Best, English Department, University of Victoria, Victoria B.C. V8W 3W1, Canada.
mbest1@uvic.ca