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Spring, 2001 | |
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English 402 |
Rice 30, (440) 775-8576 |
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E-mail: David.Young@oberlin.edu |
This course is built around the sonnets and Hamlet, two of Shakespeare's most intriguing achievements. These texts have been subjected to more interpretation, and fostered more arguments about their meanings, than anything else he wrote.
One reason for the confusions they produce may lie in the fact that both works belong to literary sub-genres that were highly popular in their own time but whose conventions, nuances and cultural contexts are now largely lost to us. Retrieving those genres and their contexts should make us more confident readers and interpreters of these notoriously difficult and intriguing works from four hundred years ago. The process should also serve to demystify Shakespeare and restore him to us as a man of his time, reacting to the world around him and to the writers he found himself both competing with and influenced by.
We'll tackle the sonnets in the first half of the course and Hamlet in the second. As we study the Shakespearean texts, in each half, we will simultaneously read works that gave rise to the sub-genres and works that were contemporary with Shakespeare's own practice. This structure will circulate our attention between Shakespearean and non-Shakespearean texts, and should enrich our response to both.
Since the class is small, and advanced in nature, I will expect to divide up the responsibilities for covering critical approaches and textual issues among the class members. At each class session you may be responsible for researching a particular critic, or a particular historical problem. You may also take responsibility for some crucial piece of text, a sonnet or a dramatic scene, for example. By collaborative effort we can constitute ourselves as a team of scholar-readers who accomplish more than any one individual might.
Only two texts have been ordered for the class: the Arden editions of Shakespeare's Sonnets and Hamlet. You will definitely need these particular editions. The rest of our reading we can develop for ourselves by using Mudd Library and through the Internet. Many of the texts we're studying are available, in complete and scholarly editions, on the Internet. In addition, our group will have a study carrel where the texts we are using, primary and secondary, will be kept for our in-library use. To make this work we must be conscientious about returning books we're not reading to the carrel, for the use of others.
I'll expect you to develop two longish papers, 10-12 pages, out of our work in each half of the course. They'll be due as we conclude the units, and I've left class time for their presentation, in progress and by summary.
SCHEDULE OF ASSIGNMENTS:
Tues. Feb. 6: Introductory session.
Thurs. Feb. 8: Beginnings of the sonnet tradition: Courtly love, Dante, Cavalcanti.
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Tues. Feb. 13: Petrarch. I've translated the first 150 or so sonnets in the Rime Sparse. I will send you this document for downloading. The complete Italian version is available on the Internet. Just do a search under "Petrarch."
Thurs. Feb. 15: Shakespeare, Sonnets 1-28.
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Tues. Feb. 20: The sonnet in English: Wyatt and Surrey.
Thurs. Feb. 22: Shakespeare, Sonnets 29-52.
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Tues. Feb, 27: Sidney, Astrophel and Stella.
Thurs. March 1: Shakespeare, Sonnets 53-86.
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Tues. March 6: Spenser, Amoretti and Epithalamion.
Thurs. March 8: Shakespeare, Sonnets 87-126.
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Tues. March 13: Samuel Daniel, Fulke Greville, and Michael Drayton.
Thurs. March 15: Shakespeare, Sonnets 127-154.
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Tues. March 20: Wrap-up.
Thurs. March 22: Wrap-up.
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SPRING BREAK
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Tues. April 3: Seneca and Kyd, The Spanish Tragedy
Thurs. April 5: Hamlet, Act I.
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Tues. April 10: Seneca and Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus
Thurs. April 12: Hamlet, Act II.
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Tues. April 17: Marston, Antonio's Revenge
Thurs. April 19: Hamlet, Act III.
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Tues. April 24: Tourneur? Middleton? The Revenger's Tragedy
Thurs. April 26: Hamlet, Act IV.
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Tues. May 1: Webster, The White Devil
Thurs. May 3: Hamlet, Act V.
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Tues. May 8: Middleton, Women Beware Women
Thurs. May 10: wrap-up.
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PAPER DUE DATES: March 23 and May 14.