ENH2210

The woman's part

Proposed to be offered next in 1999

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

Prescribed texts

Middleton T Five plays Penguin
Shakespeare W The Merchant of Venice Signet
Shakespeare W Antony and Cleopatra Signet
Shakespeare W Othello Signet
Shakespeare W As You Like It Signet
Shakespeare W The Winter's Tale Signet
Webster J Three plays Penguin

Recommended texts

McLuskie K Renaissance dramatists Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1989