English 512--Fall 2003

English 512: Shakespeare and English Renaissance Drama

Titus Andronicus in The Swan theatre (1596)

Shakespeare in Love in a facsimile of The Curtain theatre (1998)

This class studies a representative selection of Shakespeare's plays and those of his contemporary dramatists. Exploring similarities and differences among them illuminates Shakespeare's standing as a writer of his time and culture, the first among peers. Emphasis falls on the texts as scripts for theatrical performance in the playhouses and palaces of the Renaissance and in the movie studios of our age. Shakespeare in Love serves as a central reference point, both in its fictional representation of history and in its self-conscious translation of Elizabethan theatrical devices into the language of film.

Section 01: MW 6:10-8:00 PM in 22-314

Instructor: Steven Marx

phone: 756-2411

smarx@calpoly.edu

http://cla.calpoly.edu/~smarx

Office: 47-25E (Faculty Office Building)

Office hours: MW: 10:10-11:00 AM; 2:10-3:00 PM

Fall 2003 Schedule

week	date	text	author	genre	film director	reports	optional reading and viewing
I	9/22	General Introductions to both textbooks [if available] Shakespeare in Love Lecture Notes		bildungsroman	Madden		NYTimes article 9-02-03 Steven Marx's Shakespeare in Love page "Two Popular Kinsmen" Film Ed. site on SIL Stage and Film Vocabulary A Paradigm for literary analysis Triangulating Shakespeare
	9/24	Tamburlaine I Lecture Notes	Christopher Marlowe	history		report schedule	About the historical Tamerlane "Moses and Machiavellism" Michaelangelo: David and Moses
II	9/29	Henry V Marlowe and Shakespere	William Shakespeare	history		comparison	"Holy War in Henry V" "Shakespeare's Pacifism"
	10/1	Henry V		history	Branagh	film scene	Donaldson on Branagh
III	10/6	Titus Andronicus reading notes	William Shakespeare	tragedy			article in Seattle Times
	10/8	Titus Andronicus		tragedy	Taymore	film scene	Lindsey Hayes: "The Music of Titus"
IV	10/13	The White Devil reading and lecture notes	John Webster	tragedy		comparison
	10/15	Richard III reading and discussion notes	William Shakespeare	history/tragedy
V	10/20	Richard III		history/tragedy	Loncraine	film scene	"Cinema and the Kingdom of Death" or multimedia version[username: scaena2001 pw: loncraine] English 431 RIII Colette Hayes: "Shakespeare, Loncraine...and Me" Lindsey Robinson: "Brilliant Title"
	10/22	Volpone	Ben Jonson	comedy		comparison
VI	10/27	A Midsummernight's Dream Reading Notes Lecture Notes	William Shakespeare	comedy
	10/29	A Midsummernight's Dream		comedy	Rhinehart	film scene
VII	11/3	Knight of the Burning Pestle Lecture and Reading notes	Francis Beaumont	comedy		comparison
	11/5	Othello Lecture notes	William Shakespeare	tragedy
VIII	11/10	Othello		tragedy	Miller (BBC)	film scene
	11/12	Tis Pity She's a Whore Reading Notes	John Ford	tragedy		comparison
IX	11/17	Masque of Blackness Hymenae	Ben Jonson	masque			The Globe and the Banqueting House
	11/19	The Tempest end quarter information	William Shakespeare	masque/comedy		comparison
X	11/24	The Tempest		masque/comedy	Greenaway [Prospero's Books]	film scene	Greenaway's Books
	11/26 holiday
XI	12/1	seminars				paper draft due; read and present to class for feedback
	12/3	seminars				papers returned
XII	12/8					final draft of papers
	12/10 4:10 pm 22-314	exam

Assignments

Reading and viewing

Reading and viewing of the assigned works should be completed on dates indicated to facilitate class discussion. Reading should include the introduction to the play in the anthologies listed below. DVD or video versions of the Shakespeare plays can be viewed in the Library Multimedia Center or rented from local video outlets.

Writing (both involve report to class and written paper)

Discussion of how a film performance of one scene or subscene brings out an interpretation of the text: 1000-1250 words. One option for presentation will be experimental software developed by Peter Donaldson at MIT for excerpting and annotating DVDs. [30% of grade]

Comparison/contrast between an element in a Shakespeare play and in a play by one of his contemporaries, with supported value judgements: 2250-2500 words [50% of grade]

Final exam in the format of a question on the MA exam for this period [20% of grade]

Textbooks:

The Norton Shakespeare
English Renaissance Drama (Norton)