This course will focus on Shakespeare's comedies, histories, and selected tragedies, introducing students to Shakespeare's language, dramatic techniques, historical surround, relationship to Renaissance humanism (the poetry and drama of classical Rome in particular), and innovations as he moved from play to play. At the same time, we will also examine some central issues that traverse many plays and genres, including the status of error, itself a pivotal dramatic pre-occupation that we will trace out from The Comedy of Errors to Hamlet, the plays that open and close the course. So too, we will investigate Shakespeare's ongoing experiments in the domain of metamorphosis, and consider the status of the material object (props, bodies, costumes, monetary instruments, etc.) in numerous early plays. Other plays include Love's Labour's Lost, Richard III, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Merchant of Venice, The Henriad, Much Ado About Nothing, and Twelfth Night.

This page is under construction. Please check back at a later date for updates!