Spring 2002

Mr. Pierce

English/Comparative Literature 405
MWF, 3:30-4:20
Mudd 303

Rice 106, (440) 775-8583,
Office hours:,
by appt

E-mail: Robert.Pierce@oberlin.edu

ENGLISH 405: PHILOSOPHICAL ISSUES IN SHAKESPEARE

 

 

REQUIRED TEXT:  Any recent annotated Shakespeare; please bring to each class.

 

Assignments and topics of discussion:

 

Feb. 4             Introduction

 

Feb. 6             Introduction to skepticism: Annas and Barnes, pp. 1-30

 

Feb. 8-11        Reports on the modes                    

 

Feb. 13           Session on research methods with Cynthia Comer, Mudd 443

 

Feb. 15           Introduction to Hamlet

 

Feb. 18-20      Reports on Hamlet essays

 

Feb. 25           Stoicism and Julius Caesar; Arnold essay

 

Feb. 27-Mar. 1 Reports on Julius Caesar essays

 

Mar. 4             Cynicism and Timon of Athens

 

Mar. 6-8         Reports on Timon essays

 

Mar. 11           Determinacy of readings and As You Like It

 

Mar. 13-15     Reports on As You Like It essays

 

Mar. 18           Performance: text or interpretation; report on project topics

 

Mar. 20           Styan essay

 

Mar. 22           First paper due

 

Apr. 1-3          Feminism and The Taming of the Shrew; report on essays

 

Apr. 5             Read Pierce essay

 

Apr. 8             New Historicism and Macbeth; read Howard essay

 

Apr. 10-12      Report on Macbeth essays

 

Apr. 15-19      Report on individual projects

 

Apr. 22-24      Colonialism and The Tempest; report on essays

 

Apr. 26           Read handout essay

 

Apr. 29           Criticism and its critics; read Levin essay

 

May 1-3          Report on essay from your project

 

May 6-8          Discussion topics, to be chosen

 

May 10           Ludic approaches to Shakespeare (party)

 

 

COURSE REQUIREMENTS:

 

Much of the class will be discussion. Note that you should have read each play when we first discuss it. When you have an individual reading topic, you should be prepared to give a brief (about five minutes) report on it; bring the text if you can. Regular attendance and participation in discussion are of course vital; if you cannot be in class, try to get warning to me in advance.

 

The first paper should develop some specific issue from the course in relation to one of the plays, preferably one not much covered in class. The paper should be about five to seven pages with some reference to criticism, but don't let the paper be taken over by the critics. The final paper, due by the day a final exam would have been if we had one, should be about 15-20 pages on a topic that you choose in consultation with me. It should deal with one or more of the issues raised by the course, and it can be on any of the plays or poems in the canon.

 

 

 

                        For there was never yet philosopher

                        That could endure the toothache patiently.

 

 BIBLIOGRAPHY

 

SKEPTICISM:

 

Annas, Julia and Jonathan Barnes. The Modes of Scepticism. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1985.

Bradshaw, Graham. Shakespeare's Scepticism. Brighton: Harvester, 1987.

Frye, Roland Mushat. The Renaissance Hamlet: Issues and Responses in 1600. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1984.

Girard, Rene. "Hamlet's Dull Revenge." Literary Theory/Renaissance Texts. Ed. Patricia Parker and David Quint. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1986.

Hawkes, Terence. "Telmah." That Shakespeherian Rag: Essays on a Critical Process. New York: Methuen, 1981

Jenkins, Harold, ed. Hamlet. Second Arden Shakespeare. New York: Methuen, 1982.

Long, A. A.  Hellenistic Philosophy: Stoics, Epicureans, Sceptics.  2nd ed. London: Duckworth, 1986.

_____ and D. N. Sedley. The Hellenistic Philosophers. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1987.

Pierce, Robert B. "Shakespeare and the Ten Modes of Scepticism." Shakespeare Survey 46 (1994): 145-58.

_____. "'Very Like a Whale': Scepticism and Seeing in 'The Tempest.'" Shakespeare Survey 38 (1985): 167-73.

Popkin, Richard H. The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza. Rev. ed. Berkeley: U. of California Press, 1979.

Schofield, Malcolm, Myles Burnyeat, and Jonathan Barnes, eds. Doubt and Dogmatism: Studies in Hellenistic Epistemology. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980.

Sextus Empiricus. Outlines of Scepticism. Trans. Julia Annas and Jonathan Barnes. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1994.

Wofford, Susanne L., ed. Hamlet: Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism. Boston: Bedford, 1994.

 

STOICISM:  (See also Long, Long and Sedley, and Schofield above.)

 

Colish, Marcia L. The Stoic Tradition from Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages. Vol. 1. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1985.

Spencer, T. J. B. "Shakespeare and the Elizabethan Romans." Shakespeare Survey 10 (1957): 27-38.

Stirling, Brents. Unity in Shakespearian Tragedy. New York: Columbia UP, 1956.

 

CYNICISM:

 

Branham, R. Bracht and Marie-Odile Goulet-Caze, eds. The Cynics: The Cynic Movement in Antiquity and Its Legacy. Berkeley: U. of California Press, 1996.

Elliott, Robert C. The Power of Satire: Magic, Ritual, Art. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1960.

Farnham, Willard. Shakespeare's Tragic Frontier: The World of His Final Tragedies. Berkeley: U. of California Press, 1958.

Hunt, John Dixon. "Shakespeare and the Paragone: A Reading of Timon of Athens." Images of Shakespeare. Ed. Werner Habricht, D. J. Palmer, and Roger Pringle. Newark: University of Delaware, 1988.

Kahn, Coppelia. "'Magic of Bounty': Timon of Athens, Jacobean Patronage, and Maternal Power." Shakespeare Quarterly 38 (1987): 34-57.

Knight, G. Wilson. The Wheel of Fire: Interpretation of Shakespeare's Tragedy. 5th ed. New York: Meridian, 1957.

Sayre, Ferrand. The Greek Cynics. Baltimore: J. H. Furst, 1948.

Slights, William W. E. "Genera Mixta and Timon of Athens." Studies in Philology 74 (1977): 39-62.

Soellner, Rolf. Timon of Athens: Shakespeare's Pessimistic Tragedy. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 1979.

 

DETERMINACY OF READINGS:

 

Abrams, Meyer H. Doing Things with Texts. NewYork: Norton, 1989.

Barber, C. L. Shakespeare's Festive Comedy. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1959.

Doran, Madeleine. "Yet Am I Inland Bred." Shakespeare Quarterly 15 (1964): 99-114.

Evans, Bertrand. Shakespeare's Comedies. London: Oxford UP, 1960.

Fish, Stanley Eugene. Is There a Text in This Class? Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1980.

Montrose, Louis Adrian. "The Place of a Brother in As You Like It." Shakespeare Quarterly 32 (1981): 28-54.

Scholes, Robert. Textual Power: Literary Theory and the Teaching of English. New Haven: Yale UP, 1985.

Young, David. The Heart's Forest. New Haven: Yale UP, 1972.

 

PERFORMANCE CRITICISM:

 

Brown, John Russell. Discovering Shakespeare: A New Guide to the Plays. New York: Columbia UP, 1981.

Bulman, J. C. and H. R. Coursen. Shakespeare on Television. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1988.

Cook, Ann Jennalie. The Privileged Playgoers of Shakespeare's London. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1981.

Goldman, Michael. Shakespeare and the Energies of Art. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1972.

Granville Barker, Harley. Prefaces to Shakespeare. 2 vols. London: B. T. Batsford, 1958.

Harbage, Alfred. Shakespeare's Audience. New York: Columbia UP, 1941.

Joseph, B. L. Elizabethan Acting. London: Oxford UP, 1951.

Morgan, Joyce Vining. Stanislavski's Encounter with Shakespeare. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1984.

Nagler, A. M. Shakespeare's Stage. New Haven: Yale UP, 1958.

Rutter, Carol and others. Clamorous Voices: Shakespeare's Women Today. London: Women's Press, 1989.

Slater, Anne Pasternak. Shakespeare the Director. Towota, NJ: Barnes and Noble, 1982.

Styan, J. L. Shaksspeare's Stagecraft. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1979.

 

FEMINISM:

 

Adelman, Janet. "Male Bonding in Shakespeare's Comedies." Shakespeare's "Rough Magic": Essays in Honor of C. L. Barber. Ed. Peter Erickson and Coppelia Kahn. Newark: University of Delaware, 1985.

Berry, Ralph. Shakespeare's Comedies: Explorations in Form. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1972.

Bradbrook, Muriel C. "Dramatic Role as Social Image: A Study of The Taming of the Shrew." Shakespare Jahrbuch 94 (1958): 132-50.

Brown, John Russell. Shakespeare and His Comedies. London: Methuen, 1962.

Carroll, William C. The Metamorphoses of Shakespearian Comedy. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1985.

Dash, Irene G. Wooing, Wedding, and Power: Women in Shakespeare's Plays. New York: Columbia UP, 1981.

Dusinberre, Juliet. Shakespeare and the Nature of Women. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1975.

Hodgdon, Barbara. "Katherina Bound; or, Play(K)ating the Strictures of Everyday Life." PMLA  107 (1992): 538-53.

Jardine, Lisa. Still Harping on Daughters: Women and Drama in the Age of Shakespeare. Towota, NJ: Barnes and Noble, 1983.

Kahn, Coppelia.  Man's Estate: Masculine Identity in Shakespeare. Berkeley: University of California, 1981.

Lenz, Carolyn Ruth Swift, Gayle Greene, and Carol Thomas Neely, eds. The Woman's Part: Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare. Chicago: University of Illinois, 1980.

Levin, Richard. "Feminist Thematics and Shakespearean Tragedy." PMLA 103 (1988): 125-38.

Neely, Carol Thomas. Broken Nuptials in Shakespeare's Plays. New Haven: Yale UP, 1985.

Nevo, Ruth. Comic Transformations in Shakespeare. New York: Methuen, 1980.

Novy, Marianne. Love's Argument: Gender Relations in Shakespeare. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1984.

Patterson, Annabel. "Framing The Taming." Shakespeare and Cultural Traditions. Ed. Tetsuo Kishi, Roger Pringle, and Stanley Wells. Newark: University of Delaware, 1994.

Rackin, Phyllis. "Androgyny, Mimesis, and the Marriage of the Boy Heroine on the Elizabethan Stage." PMLA 102 (1987): 29-41.

Schleiner, Winfried. "Deromanticizing the Shrew." Teaching Shakespeare. Ed. Walter Edens and others. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1977.

 

NEW HISTORICISM:

 

Bevington, David. Tudor Drama and Politics: A Critical Approach to Topical Meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1968.

Bradley, A. C. Shakespearean Tragedy. New York: Meridian, 1955.

Carr, Leo and Peggy A. Knapp. "Seeing Through Macbeth." PMLA 96 (1981): 837-47.

Carroll, William C., ed. Macbeth: Texts and Contexts. Boston: Bedford, 1999.

Clark, Arthur Melville. Murder Under Trust, or the Topical Macbeth, and Other Jacobean Matters. Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1981.

Howard, Jean E. and Scott Cutler Shershow, eds. Marxist Shakespeares. New York: Routledge, 2001.

Kasten, David Scott. Shakespeare after Theory. New York: Routledge, 1999.

Larsen, Joan. "Lady Macbeth: 'Infirm of Purpose.'" InThe Woman's Part.

Levin, Richard. "The Poetics and Politics of Bardicide." PMLA 105 (1990): 491-504.

Marcus, Leah S. Puzzling Shakespeare: Local Reading and Its Discontents. Berkeley: University of California, 1988.

Paul, Henry N. The Royal Play of Macbeth. New York: Octagon Books, 1971.

Tennenhouse, Leonard. Power on Display: The Politics of Shakespeare's Genres. New York: Methuen, 1986.

Weiman, Robert. Shakespeare and the Popular Dramatic Tradition in the Theater.  Ed. Robert Schwartz. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1978.

Wilson, Richard. "The Quality of Mercy: Discipline and Punishment in Shakespearean Comedy." The Seventeenth Century 5 (1990): 1-42.

 

COLONIALISM:

 

Brower, Reuben. "The Mirror of Analogy: 'The Tempest.'" The Fields of Light. New York: Oxford UP, 1962.

Dollimore, Jonathan and Alan Sinfield, eds. Political Shakespeare. 2nd ed. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1994.

Drakakis, John and Terence Hawkes, eds. Alternative Shakespeares. 2 vols. London: Routledge, 1996.

Graff, Gerald and James Phelan, eds. The Tempest: A Case Study in Critical Controversy. Boston: Bedford, 2000.

Greenblatt, Stephen. Shakespearean Negotiations: The Circulation of Social Energy in Renaissance England. Berkeley: University of California, 1988.

Knapp, Jeffrey L. An Empire Nowhere: England, America, and Literature from "Utopia" to "The Tempest." (Berkeley: University of California, 1992.

Loomba, Ania. Gender, Race, Renaissance Drama. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1988.

_____ and Martin Orkin. eds. Post-Colonial Shakespeares. New York: Routledge, 1998.

Mannoni, O. Prospero and Caliban: The Psychology of Colonization. Trans. Pamela Powesland. New York: Praeger, 1956.

Orgel, Stephen. "Shakespeare and the Cannibals." Cannibals, Witches, and Divorce: Estranging the Renaissance. Ed. Marjorie Garber (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1987.

Schneider Jr., Ben Ross. "'Are We Being Historical Yet': Colonialist Interpretations of Shakespeare's The Tempest." Shakespeare Studies 23 (1995): 120-45.

Wilson, Richard. "Voyage to Tunis: New History and the Old World of The Tempest." ELH 64 (1997): 333-57.

Skura, Meredith Anne. "Discourse and the Individual: The Case of Colonialism in The Tempest." Shakespeare Quarterly 40 (1989): 42-69.

Vaughan, Alden T. and Virginia Mason Vaughan. Shakespeare's Caliban: A Cultural History. New York: Cambridge UP, 1991.