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ENH2210/3210

The woman's part

Not offered at Caulfield in Semester 2, 1997

D Cuthbert

8 points
* 2 hours per week
* Second semester
* Caulfield and Clayton

Objectives Students successfully completing this subject should have a sound knowledge of Shakespearean and Jacobean drama and an understanding of the ways in which gender difference is produced by discourse; they will also have a working familiarity with some of the methods of feminist, historicist and materialist criticism.

Synopsis This subject invites students to consider the representation of women and the discourse on femininity in a range of dramatic texts from the first half of the seventeenth century in light of the position of women in seventeenth-century English society and the approaches offered by feminist literary criticism. The subject will raise a number of topics for discussion including (i) the range and significance of female character types (the shrew, the widow, the whore etc.); (ii) female sexuality; (iii) love, marriage, property; (iv) male attitudes to women, especially stage misogyny; (v) relations between the sexes (husbands and wives, fathers and daughters); (vi) intersections of gender, class and racial difference.

Assessment second year Exercise (1500 words): 20%
* Short essay (1500 words): 30%
* Long essay (3000 words): 50%
* Seminar participation.

Assessment third year Exercise (1500 words): 20%
* Short essay (1500 words): 30%
* Long essay (3000 words): 50%
* Seminar participation
* Third-year students will be required to answer different essay topics and demonstrate wider reading, a deeper understanding of theoretical approaches and greater skills of analysis.

Prescribed texts

Middleton T Five plays Penguin

Shakespeare The Merchant of Venice Signet

Shakespeare Antony and Cleopatra Signet

Shakespeare Othello Signet

Shakespeare As You Like It Signet

Shakespeare The Winter's Tale Signet

Webster J Three plays Penguin

Recommended texts

McLuskie K Renaissance dramatists Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1989


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Published by Monash University, Clayton, Victoria 3168
Copyright © Monash University 1996 - All Rights Reserved - Caution
Authorised by the Academic Registrar December 1996