ENGLISH 445 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: COMEDY/TRAGEDY Mark Heberle
(MWF 11:30 –12:20 Spring 2017)
Books required:
Bantam Edition paperbacks of Shakespeare Alive!, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado About Nothing, Measure for Measure, Othello, King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra
Although Shakespeare’s final four plays are often labeled “tragicomedies,” his earlier plays also complicate the distinction between comedy and tragedy in ways that allow us to see how each of the two fundamental dramatic genres is implicated in the other even as it defines itself dramatically. We will be reading eight early, middle, and late plays this semester in which the interplay of comedy and tragedy takes a variety of forms and outcomes. We will proceed act by act, play by play, using class discussion to analyze, appreciate, and enjoy each work in depth and to call attention to both the delightful/comic and the and the serious/tragic in all of them. By the end of the course, we should all appreciate more fully the ways in which, as Ben Jonson wrote in 1616, Shakespeare’s works were “not for an age / but for all time”—not least because they help us understand what comedy and tragedy are all about.
We will proceed act-by-act, scene-by-scene through these eight plays, variously using instructor comments/lectures, open discussions (Fridays), group discussion, student reports, and video excerpts in individual classes.
Course requirements:
Attendance (10%) Class participation, oral and written (10%)
Written essays: Short papers: Explication (10%) and Scene Analysis (10%)
Play Comparison (20%)
Exams: Ten closed-book quizzes on plays and contexts (20%)
Final, open-book exam (20%)
Extra credit Up to 5% for outstanding participation and a written
summary and report on a ninth play