2019-2020 Academic Catalog

Apr 19, 2024

2019-2020 Academic Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

ENG 353 - Advanced Studies in Shakespeare

“The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he really is very good, in spite of all the people who say he is very good.”
- Robert Graves, quoted in The Observer, 1964

In this seminar we will explore a variety of Shakespeare’s plays within the contexts of family relationships and the popular analogical framing of the home as “a little commonwealth,” representing the state in miniature. Through our readings and classroom discussions, we will examine early modern ideas (and attendant anxieties) about gender roles, domestic violence, obedience, treason, and a putatively natural order in which the husband and father functioned as the sovereign of his household realm, with wife, children, and servants as subjects. In doing so, we will employ various critical perspectives (historical, feminist, post-colonial) to put these centuries old texts in conversation with the concerns and issues of our own historical moment.

Anticipated Terms Offered: Periodically