Course title: Shakespeare
Instructor: Asst. Prof. Tomislav Brlek
ECTS credits: 6
Language: English
Duration: Semester 4 to 6
Status: elective
Enrolment requirements: completed Introduction to English Lit/Introduction to English Lit 1 and 2
The course is designed as an analysis of William Shakespeare’s works in the light of the fact that they were written for theatre performance. The focus will be on close reading and interpretation of six plays, as well as on the discussion of select critical works relevant to this particular aspect. The main goal of the course is to point out the central poetical characteristics of Shakespeare’s playwriting, which has a special place in the history of English literature, as the basis for reading his work.
(http://theta.ffzg.hr/ECTS/Predmet/Index/5619)
Syllabus: SHAKESPEARE
- Introduction
- Eliot, “Introduction”
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream
- Frye, On Shakespeare, 34-50
- Girard, Theater of Envy, 29-79; 167-173; 234-242
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream
- Kott, “Titania and the Ass’s Head,” ShOC, 171-190
- Kott, “The Bottom Translation,” BT, 29-68
- The Tempest
- Frye, On Shakespeare, 171-186
- Kott, “Prospero’s Staff,” ShOC, 237-278
- The Tempest
- Kott, “The Tempest, or Repetition,” BT, 69-106
- McGuire, “Shakespeare’s Tempest: Rhetoric and Poetics”
- Measure for Measure
- Frye, On Shakespeare, 140-153
- Stevenson, “Design and Structure in Measure for Measure”
- Measure for Measure
- Kott, “Head for Maidenhead, Maidenhead for Head: The Structure of Exchange in Measure for Measure”
- Schanzer, “Measure for Measure”
- Macbeth
- Kott, “Macbeth or Death-Infected,” ShOC, 68-78
- Byles, “Macbeth: Imagery of Destruction”
- Nevo, “Macbeth,” TF, 214-257
- Macbeth
- Knight, “Macbeth and the Metaphysic of Evil,” WF, 140-159
- Knight, “The Milk of Concord,” IT, 125-153
- Garber, “Macbeth: the Male Medusa,” GW, 116-165
- Richard III
- Kott, “The Kings,” ShOC, 3-46
- Campbell, “The Tragical Doings of King Richard III”
- Richard III
- Rossiter, “Angel with Horns: the Unity of Richard III,” AwH, 1-22
- Brooke, “Richard III (1593?)”
- Garber, “Descanting on Deformity: Richard III and the Shape of History,” GW, 39-68
- Coriolanus
- Knight, “The Royal Occupation,” IT, 154-198
- Nevo, “Coriolanus,” TF, 356-404
- Coriolanus
- Kott, “Coriolanus or Shakespearean Contradictions,” ShOC, 141-167
- Rossiter, “Coriolanus,” AwH, 235-252
- Brlek, “Ill Seen, Well Said”
READING LIST
Northrop Frye, On Shakespeare, ed. Robert Sandler (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986)
Marjorie Garber, Shakespeare’s Ghost Writers: Literature as Uncanny Causality (London: Routledge, 1987; 2010) = GW
René Girard, A Theater of Envy: William Shakespeare (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991)
- Wilson Knight, The Wheel of Fire: Interpretations of Shakespearian Tragedy with three new essays (London: Methuen, 1930; 1962) = WF
- Wilson Knight, The Imperial Theme: Further Interpretations of Shakespeare’s Tragedies including the Roman Plays (London: Methuen, 1931; 1965) = IT
Jan Kott, Shakespeare Our Contemporary [1964], tr. Boleslaw Taborski (London: Routledge, 1991) =ShOC
Jan Kott, The Bottom Translation : Marlowe and Shakespeare and the Carnival tradition, tr. Daniela Miedzyrzecka and Lillian Vallee (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1987) = BT
Ruth Nevo, Tragic Form in Shakespeare (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972) = TF
A.P. Rossiter, Angel with Horns and Other Shakespeare Lectures, ed. Graham Storey (London: Longmans, 1962), = AwH
_______________________
Tomislav Brlek, “Ill Seen, Well Said (On the Uses of Rhetoric in Julius Caesar and Coriolanus),” Studia Romanica et Anglica Zagrabiensia 43 (1998): 161-171
Nicholas Brooke, “Richard III (1593?),” Shakespeare’s Early Tragedies (London: Methuen, 1968), 48-79
Joan M. Byles, “Macbeth: Imagery of Destruction,” American Imago 39(1982)2: 149-164
Lily B. Campbell, “The Tragical Doings of King Richard III,” Shakespeare’s ‘Histories’: Mirrors of Elizabethan Policy (London: Methuen, 1947; 1964), 306-334
T.S. Eliot, “Introduction” in Knight, WF, xiii-xx
Jan Kott, “Head for Maidenhead, Maidenhead for Head: The Structure of Exchange in Measure for Measure,” Theater Quarterly 8.31 (1978): 18-24
Jerry D. McGuire, “Shakespeare’s Tempest: Rhetoric and Poetics,” American Imago 39 (1982)3: 219-37
Ernest Schanzer, “Measure for Measure,” The Problem Plays of Shakespeare (Routledge, 1963), 71-131
L. Stevenson, “Design and Structure in Measure for Measure,” Shakespeare: Measure for Measure: A Casebook, ed. C.K. Stead (London; Macmillan, 1971), 213-232
