Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama and Theatre

Timetable

This course is part 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. Students will also learn about the key influences that lead to the development of early modern drama in England. 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. Credits will be given on the basis of an in-class essay, at home essay or in-class presentation.

Module aim (aims)

1. To provide students with the most important information about the drama and theatre of the Elizabethan era and the period of the reign of James I in England.

2. To provide students with the most important information about theatrical practices of the early modern period in England.

3. To provide knowledge about the most important works, creators and processes in English drama of the early modern period.

4. To develop the ability to recognise historical and cultural references in the literature and culture of English-speaking countries.

5. To provide students with basic names and terminology in the field of theatre and literary studies in English.

6. To use terminology from the field of theatre and literary studies in English in practice.

7. To develop the ability to use the literature on the subject.

 

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

N/A

Syllabus

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

 

2. Love is love is love, or Lyly’s gender-bending fantasy and the cross-dressing conventions: John Lyly’s Galathea (1588) - Early comedy: the victory of female homoeroticism or the reestablishment of heteronormativity? Galathea in light of modern ideas on trans and/or nonbinary identities. Galathea and John Lyly’s drama as a prelude to Shakespeare’s cross-dressing comedies. John Lyly’s and early modern drama’s indebtedness to ancient mythology.

 

3. Enfant terrible or the bad boy of the English Renaissance; Christopher Marlowe iz in da house: 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. 

 

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

 

4. "Man up! Boys don't cry!": Gender Expectations and Gender Realities in Shakespeare's Macbeth (1 & 2).

 

5. "Go to, go to, better thou/ Hadst not been born than not to have pleased me better": Parental Expectations and Filial Realties in Shakespeare's King Lear (Lear, 1.1.235-6) (1). 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 (1 & 2).

 

6. "Monstrous women" worthy of a tragedy: Webster's The Duchess of Malfi. Topics: Whose is the pregnant body? Pregnancy in early modern drama: female agency and John Webster (1 & 2)

 

7. #MeToo in the Seventeenth Century: 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.

 

8. #MeToo in the Seventeenth Century: Powerful and Degenerate Men versus Defiant and Courageous Women: Shakespeare's The Winter’s Tale (1& 2). 

 

9. If time allows: Shakesepare's "Twelfth Night".

 

10. Final Test (In-class essay)

 

11. Final Evaluation and finishing of the remaining topics.

Reading list

The plays enumerated in the syllabus (or the film/ theatre adaptations).