Shakespeare and the Supernatural

In this course, we will examine magic and the supernatural in four Shakespeare plays: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Macbeth, Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest. We’ll read these plays with close attention to content (supernatural elements of narrative and character) and form (for example, spells, charms and incantations), as well as historical and cultural context (Early Modern beliefs about witchcraft, good and evil, magic, and the supernatural). We will be using the Oxford texts of these four plays, which are inexpensive and widely available.