English 445 is an introduction to the work of the greatest writer in the English language, the greatest playwright of all time, and one of the greatest writers of all time, William Shakespeare. Although Shakespeare wrote more than 400 years ago, he is still our contemporary in that his plays depict racism, empire, gender fluidity, same sex attachments in ways that anticipate and lead to modern ways and values. We will read selections from all four of the genres Shakespeare wrote in, comedy, tragedy, history, and romance.
This is a zero textbook cost course as we will use electronic editions of the plays issued by the Folger Shakespeare Library. There will be a series of short papers on the plays we read in the first half of the semester, a final paper treating a work of art in another genre that is inspired by or based on a work by Shakespeare, and a final exam. The course will be run as a seminar discussion and will be a synchronous on-line course.