ENGL 225 A: Shakespeare

Autumn 2022                       English 225a:                                 W.R. Streitberger

TuTh 8:30-10:20                                                                         A-510 Padleford   

SWS 032                             Shakespeare                                    streitwr@

Required Text: The Norton Shakespeare, Essential Plays/ Sonnets 3^rd ed.

3 Required Films: Trevor Nunn’s Twelfth Night . See 27 Oct below (rent it online $3 to $5).                              Julie Taymor’s The Tempest. See 1 Dec below (free on YouTube)                                                              Hamlet.See 22 Nov below

The Course: This is a 200 level university course in Shakespeare’s plays and poetry. Early in his career Shakespeare was primarily a writer of poetry, comedies, and histories; in his later career he primarily wrote tragedies and tragicomedies. We will be concerned with close reading and discussion of works written throughout his career: A selection of the Sonnets, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night, Hamlet, and The Tempest. Our focus will be both on the artistry in Shakespeare’s texts—the use of language and poetry, the ideas of dramatic construction, the understanding of genre, the conception of gender, the idea of theater, the impact of education on choice and treatment of subjects, the history of the texts, and criticism of his works—and in film adaptations.

Requirements: For each 50-minute class period I have assigned reading and provided three questions about it. Your job is to come to class fully prepared to discuss these questions. I will call on students to report on them. From five to seven times during the quarter I will ask you to choose one of the questions as the subject of a 25-minute essay. You may choose any of the three questions assigned to that class period. I will allow you to make up two of these essays if you are absent or unprepared. Evaluations are based both on your responses in class discussions and on your written essays.

Schedule

Week 1. This week read Norton, 44-74, on Shakespeare’s life.

29 Sept Introduction.

Week 2. This week read Norton, 1-44, on Shakespeare’s world.

4 Oct  First hour: Petrarch, Shakespeare’s sonnets 18, 73.

2^nd hour: Read sonnets 2, 7, 8, 10, 12,  15, 17, 20, 30, 40-42, 64, 97 116

6 October First hour. Read Sonnets 127, 129, 130, 135, 138, 141, 143, 144, 147, 151

Second hour.  A Midsummer Night’s Dream, act 1.

Week 3. This week read Norton, 65-69, on language and style.

11 October Read A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the introduction.

13 October A Midsummer Night’s Dream conclusion

Week 4. This week read Norton, 121-35, on Shakespearean comedy

18 October Read Much Ado About Nothing and the introduction

20 October  Much Ado About Nothing

Week 5 This week read Norton, 93-118, on Shakespeare’s theater.

25 October First hour Much Ado About Nothing conclusion. Second hour: Read Twelfth Night and the introduction

27 October Twelfth Night. See Trevor Nunn’s adaptation of Twelfth Night before this class.    Week 6

1 November Twelfth Night conclusion.

3 November Read Henry V and the introduction

Week 7. This week read Norton, 957-68, on Shakespearean tragedy.

8 November Henry V conclusion

10 November Read Hamlet and the introduction

Week 8. This week read Norton, 75-92, on Shakespeare’s texts.

15 November Hamlet

17 November Hamlet

Week 9

22 November Look up on line descriptions of the following film adaptations of Shakespeare’s Hamlet: Laurence Olivier, Peter Brook,  Michael Alneryda, Franco Zeffirilli, Kenneth Branagh.. Choose the one you think will be most interesting. Find it on You Tube or rent it; watch it.

24 November Thanksgiving Holiday

Week 10. This week read Norton, 1625-40, on Shakespeare’s romances.

29 November  Hamlet conclusion

1 December  Read The Tempest and the introduction. Before our next class see Julie Taymor’s film adaptations of The Tempest

Week 11

6 December  The Tempest

8 December  The Tempest, conclusion

Sonnet 1

Quatrain 1

A       From/ fair/ est/ crea/ tures/ we/ de/ sire/ in/ crease,/      

B       That/ there/ by/ beau/ ty’s/ rose/ might/ nev/ er/ die,/     

A       But/ as/ the/ rip/ er/ should/ by/ time/ de/ cease,/                                 

B       His/ ten/ der/ heir/ might/ bear/ his/ mem/o/ ry;/           

Quatrain 2

C       But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,              

D       Feed’st thy light’s flame with self-substantial fuel,         

C       Making a famine where abundance lies,                                              

D       Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.                   

Quatrain 3

E       Thou that art now the world’s fresh ornament               

F       And only herald to the gaudy spring,                        

E       Within thine own bud buriest they content,                                               

F       And, tender churl, mak’st waste in niggarding.               

Couplet

G              Pity the world, or else this glutton be:             

G              To eat the world’s due, by the grave and thee.