A course entitled “Shakespeare” carries with it hundreds of years of accumulated cultural baggage; this quarter, in what the course catalog deems an introduction to Shakespeare’s career as a dramatist, we’ll attempt to rifle through that baggage and work towards a holistic understanding of Shakespeare as a playwright from his own time until the present day by coming at “this God of our idolatry” from three distinct but interrelated angles: works, context, and legacy. These approaches will also dictate the goals, structure, and content of the course. We’ll read a selection of plays from varying genres, and critical consideration of the works themselves will be our primary focus, with the main goal of the class being that through close reading and analysis, you’ll be in a position to understand and to enjoy and appreciate (or to explain from an educated, critical, analytical perspective why you dislike) the dramatic works of Shakespeare. We’ll enrich this understanding with attention to the contexts—historical, theatrical, political, literary, and biographical—of the plays and their author, and by looking at various instances of their cultural legacy (reception, performance, criticism, adaptation, allusion, etc.). By considering Shakespeare from these various angles, and through your efforts toward critical thinking, analysis, research, and argumentation, we’ll work towards an interrogation of assumptions about Shakespeare and his work, and take time to enjoy the fun, passion, violence, sexuality, terror, beauty, and endurance of the language of the plays.

Course work will reflect the dynamic approach to the subject (which in turn reflects the inevitable dynamicism of Shakespeare studies), and may include discussion, online postings, research, group presentations, critical article reports, and scene performances, as well as critical writing. This course meets the university “W” requirement, which means that students must produce 10-15 pages of graded, out-of-class writing, which must be significantly revised. (For more specific W-course criteria, please see http://www.washington.edu/uaa/gateway/advising/degreeplanning/writreqs.php).

There are no prerequisites, though a general enthusiasm for the subject can’t hurt. Course texts will include selected plays as well as a course pack. Due to economic and weight-bearing constraints, I am not requiring that you purchase a complete works for this course, though it’s certainly a worthwhile purchase, and they can be found used for very cheap. Whether you get a complete works, or individual texts, you must work with editions that have explanatory and textual notes and have been published in the last ten years, and you may NOT use online editions or No Fear Shakespeare (or any other modern English “translation” edition). We will spend some time in class discussing the process and history of textual editing of Shakespeare, and will therefore have informed opportunities to discuss textual variants that appear in any of your various editions. Some acceptable editions include: Oxford, Arden, Norton, Folger Shakespeare, and New Cambridge (though others could work too). Plays will most likely include but may not be limited to: Twelfth Night, Titus Andronicus, Henry V, King Lear, and The Tempest.