DTS2630

Shakespeare: text and performance

S Tweg

8 points
* 2 hrs (plus optional 2 hrs)
* First semester
* Clayton

Objectives Students completing this subject should have acquired an ability to read and understand Shakespeare's dramatic language as poetry and as text for performance. They should have developed an understanding of Shakespeare's dramatic techniques and the conventions of his theatre together with some basic knowledge of Elizabethan and Jacobean political, social and philosophic contexts in which the plays are situated. In addition, students should have attained competence in written analysis and discussion, plus the confidence to contribute to class discussion, to participate in group readings and to present a short piece related to the optional performance seminar if they so choose.

Synopsis This subject explores eight of Shakespeare's plays, both as texts on the page for reading, study and analysis and as blueprints for performance work. We are interested in discovering how the plays have been understood at different historic times, with changing social and political frames, and in different cultures, East and West. The texts chosen reflect a mix of popular theatre favourites as well as a few less well-known plays. There will be a weekly two-hour lecture/seminar for all students, plus an additional (optional) two-hour performance seminar/workshop on Wednesday afternoons. The aim is to encourage all students (whether performers or not) to experience the plays as both imaginative poetry and living theatre.

Assessment Essay (1500 words): 30%
* Oral presentation (1500 words): 30%
* Examination (3 hrs) or participation in the performance seminar which will include either written work with performance or a long essay (3000 words): 40%

Prescribed texts

(Choose the most recent New Penguin, Oxford or Cambridge editions for textual legibility and good notes)
Much Ado About Nothing
Titus Andronicus
Romeo and Juliet
Richard III
Measure for Measure
Othello
Cymbeline
The Tempest
For the Wednesday performance seminar: The Winter's Tale
A subject handbook with full details of seminar programme, topics and readings will be available from the Centre office in January.