Elizabethan and Jacobean Theatre and Drama

Timetable

as indicated in “Planer”

Module aim (aims)

This course is part and parcel of the Theatre and Drama in English Programme. The main aim of the course is to familiarize students with the phenomenon of the Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre. Students will also get to know selected works by Elizabethan and Stuart dramatists. This course is in part a continuation of ‘Shakespeare and the Conventions of his Time’ course. This time students will also learn about the key influences that lead to the development of early modern drama in England. The course will utilize previously learnt terminology in drama and theatre studies in practice. Theatre conventions and practices, the structure of playhouses as well as key themes in early modern drama will be revised. The ability to read early modern texts as well as reference literature will be practised. Having completed the course students will be aware of the continuity of historical processes but also the overwhelming impact of political and ideological circumstances on the formation of human identity.n.a.

Pre-requisites in terms of knowledge, skills and social competences (where relevant)

n.a.

Syllabus

Week 1: Presentation of the syllabus and the introduction to the course.

 

Week 2: Enfant terrible or the bad boy of the English Renaissance; Christopher Marlowe iz in da house (1): introduction to Marlowe’s turbulent life, topics: toxic masculinity, homoerotic desire and exclusively male domains; Marlowe’s overreachers; fragments from Tamburlaine, Part 1 and The Jew of Malta. Tamburlaine, short introduction to University Wits.

 

 Week 3: Revenge is a dish best served cold: Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy, the popular appeal for revenge tragedies.

 

 Week 4: "Man up! Boys don't cry!": Gender Expectations and Gender Realities in Shakespeare's Macbeth (1).

 

 Week 5: "Man up! Boys don't cry!": Gender Expectations and Gender Realities in Shakespeare's Macbeth (2).

 

 Week 6: "Go to, go to, better thou/ Hadst not been born than not to have pleased me better": Parental Expectations and Filial Realities in Shakespeare's King Lear (Lear, 1.1.235-6) (2). Topics: Good and bad daughters, good and bad sons, absent mothers and cruel fathers: Shakespearean tragedy, Shakespeare’s King Lear. Shakespearean adaptations, Peter Brook’s King Lear.

 

 Week 7: "Go to, go to, better thou/ Hadst not been born than not to have pleased me better": Parental Expectations and Filial Realites in Shakespeare's King Lear (Lear, 1.1.235-6) (2). Topics: Good and bad daughters, good and bad sons, absent mothers and cruel fathers: Shakespearean tragedy, Shakespeare’s King Lear. Shakespearean adaptations, Peter Brook’s King Lear.

 

Week 8: "Monstrous women" worthy of a tragedy (3): Webster's The Duchess of Malfi (1). Topics: Whose is the pregnant body? Pregnancy in early modern drama: female agency and John Webster.

 

 Week 9: "Monstrous women" worthy of a tragedy (2): Webster's The Duchess of Malfi (2). Topics: Whose is the pregnant body? Pregnancy in early modern drama: female agency and John Webster.

 

 Week 10: #MeToo in the Seventeenth Century (1): Powerful and Degenerate Men versus Defiant and Courageous Women: Shakespeare's Measure for Measure. Topics: Impossible moral choices, bodily autonomy, shady and uncomfortable resolutions, Shakespeare’s problem plays.

 

 Week 11: #MeToo in the Seventeenth Century (1): Powerful and Degenerate Men versus Defiant and Courageous Women: Shakespeare's The Winter’s Tale. Topics: Whose is the pregnant body? postpartum body, women and rhetoric, maternity in the early modern period, pregnancy in early modern drama: female agency and late Shakespearean problem plays.

 

Week 12: #MeToo in the Seventeenth Century (2): Powerful and Degenerate Men versus Defiant and Courageous Women: Shakespeare's The Winter’s Tale. Topics: Whose is the pregnant body? postpartum body, women and rhetoric, maternity in the early modern period, pregnancy in early modern drama: female agency and late Shakespearean problem plays.

 

Week 13: Student Projects

 

 Week 14: FINAL TEST

 

 Week 15: Student Projects

Reading list

Christoper Marlowe fragments from Tamburlaine 1, The Jew of Malta (as indicated in the syllabus) Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy

William Shakespeare, Macbeth

William Shakespeare, King Lear John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

William Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale

William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure (fragments)

Thomas Kyd, The Changeling (if time allows)