Course title: Shakespeare
Instructor: Prof. Janja Ciglar-Žanić.
ECTS credits: 6.
Status: elective.
Semester: 3rd or 5th.
Enrollment requirements: completed 2nd or 4th semester.
Course description: The course will be concerned with a selected number of Shakespeare’s plays viewed in the light of new theories of literature and culture. A study of the new strategies of reading, developed in the last few decades (new historicism, cultural materialism, feminism, postcolonialism), will introduce the course. Each of the selected plays will be accompanied by different film productions of the corresponding play and the discussions will centre on the relationship between text and its visual presentations. Special attention will be paid to the reinscriptive practices in both textual criticism and film productions.
Objectives: The main objective of the course is to shed a new light on the traditional understanding and reading of the plays as well as on the plays themselves. An additional objective is to examine how Shakespeare’s texts function in a medium non-existent in Shakespeare’s time and how in both their textual and visual medium they are related to our present concerns.
Course requirements: Continuous evaluation: Class work (regular attendance at lectures and active class participation), a seminar paper (with an oral presentation), and two quiz– and essay—style exams on issues raised by plays covered in class and social and cultural issues as they relate to Shakespeare’s plays.
Week by week schedule:
Week 1: Introduction: Strategies of reading.
Week 2: Strategies of reading (continued).
Week 3: Shakespearean stage.
Week 4: King Lear: different readings with the emphasis on cultural materialist interpretation. Film clips: M. Elliott, Peter Brook, (BBC production).
Week 5: King Lear (continued).
Week 6: Othello: different readings with the emphasis on post—colonial and new historicist interpretations.
Week 7: Othello (continued).
Week 8: Mid—term exam.
Week 9: A Midsummer Night’s Dream: various reinscriptive practices in textual criticism and performance. Film clips: A. Noble, M. Hoffman, A. Popovski (Gavella Theatre production).
Week 10: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (continued).
Week 11: The Tempest: different readings with the emphasis on postcolonial interpretation Film clips: (the BBC production), D. Jarman, P. Greenaway (Prospero’s Books).
Week 12: The Tempest (continued).
Week 13: Concluding remarks.
Week 14: End—term exam.
Required reading:
– Orgel, Stephen, & A. R. Braunmuller (eds), The Complete Pelican Shakespeare, New York: Penguin, 2002.
– Barker, Francis, & Peter Hulme, “Nymphs and Reapers Heavily Vanish: The Discursive Con–Texts of The Tempest”, in: Drakakis, John (ed), Alternative Shakespeares. London & New York: Routledge, 1985; 191-205.
– Carter, Ronald, «The Renaissance: 1485-1660», in: Carter, Ronald, & John McRae (eds). The Routledge History of Literature in English. London & New York: Routledge, 1997; 57-126.
– Ciglar-Žanić, Janja, “Antikolonijalna Oluja: teorija i praksa suvremenih reinskripcija Shakespearea”, in: Neka veća stalnost: Shakespeare u tekstu i kontekstu, Zagreb: Zavod za znanost o književnosti Filozofskog fakulteta, 2001; 125-151.
– Dollimore, Jonathan, “King Lear (c. 1605–06) and Essentialist Humanism”, in Radical Tragedy: Religion, Ideology, and Power in the Drama of Shakespeare and his Contemporaries, Brighton: Harvester Press, 1984; 189-203.
– Girard, René, “The Course of True Love”, in A Theater of Envy: William Shakespeare; New York & Oxford: Oxford UP, 1991; 29-79.
– Greenblatt, Stephen J, “Learning To Curse: Aspects of Linguistic Colonialism in the Sixteenth Century”, in Learning to Curse: Essays in Early Modern Culture, New York & London: Routledge, 1992, 16-39.
– Gurr, Andrew, «The Shakespearean Stage», in: Greenblatt, Stephen (ed), The Norton Shakespeare, New York & London: W. W. Norton and Company, 1997; 3281-3301.
– Harrison, G. B, “Materials for the Life of Shakespeare”, in Introducing Shakespeare (3rd ed), Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1966; 29-75.
– Holderness, Graham, «Bardolatry: or, The cultural materialist’s guide to Stratford—upon—Avon», in: Holderness, Graham (ed), The Shakespeare Myth, Manchester: Manchester UP, 1998; 02-15.
– Jones, Norman, “Shakespeare’s England”, in: Kastan, David Scott (ed), A Companion to Shakespeare, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1999; 25-41.
– Kott, Jan, “King Lear, or Endgame”, in Shakespeare Our Contemporary, transl. by Boleslaw Taborski, New York: Doubleday, 1966.
– Kott, Jan, “Titania and the Ass’s Head”, in Shakespeare Our Contemporary, transl. by Boleslaw Taborski, New York: Doubleday, 1966; 213-236.
– Neill, Michael, “Unproper beds: Race, adultery, and the hideous in Othello”, Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 40, No. 4 (Winter, 1989), 383—412.
– Newman, Karen, “‘And wash the Ethiop white’: femininity and the monstrous in Othello”, in Shakespeare Reproduced: The Text in History and Ideology (1987), 2nd ed, ed. Jean E. Howard and Marion F. O’Connor, Abingdon: Routledge, 2005.
– Tatspaugh, Patricia, “Performance history: Shakespeare on the stage 1660-2001”, in: Wells, Stanley, & Lena Cowe Orlin (eds), Shakespeare: An Oxford Guide, Oxford: Oxford UP, 2003; 525-549.
– Welsford, Enid, “The Fool in King Lear”, in: Kermode, Frank (ed), Shakespeare: King Lear, 1969; 137-149.
Recommended reading:
– Barber, C. L, Shakespeare’s Festive Comedy: A Study of Dramatic Form and its Relation to Social Custom, Princeton: Princeton UP, 1972.
– Bradley, A. C, Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, London: Macmillan, 1904.
– Brooker, Peter, & Peter Widdowson (eds), A Practical Reader in Contemporary Literary Theory, Harlow [etc.]: Prentice Hall, 1996.
– Bulman, James C (ed), Shakespeare, Theory and Performance, London & New York: Routledge, 1996.
– Ciglar-Žanić, Janja, Domišljato stvoren svijet: Barok u engleskoj književnosti, Zagreb: Slap, 2008.
– Ciglar-Žanić, Janja, Neka veća stalnost: Shakespeare u tekstu i kontekstu, Zagreb: Zavod za znanost o književnosti Filozofskoga fakulteta u Zagrebu, 2001.
– Cox, John D, & David Scott Kastan (eds), A New History of Early English Drama, with an introduction by Stephen J. Greenblatta, New York: Columbia UP, 1997.
– De Grazia, Margreta, & Stanley Wells (eds), The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare, Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2001.
– Dollimore, Jonathan; & Alan Sinfield (eds), Political Shakespeare: Essays in Cultural Materialism, Manchester & New York: Manchester UP, 1985.
– Frye, Northrop, Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays, Princeton: Princeton UP, 1957.
– — A Natural Perspective: The Development of Shakespearean Comedy and Romance, New York & London: Columbia UP, 1965.
– — Fools of Time: Studies in Shakespearean Tragedy, Toronto [etc.]: University of Toronto Press, 1996.
– Greenblatt, Stephen (ed), The Norton Shakespeare, New York and London: W. W. Norton, 1997.
– Harrison, G. B, Introducing Shakespeare (3rd ed), Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1966.
– Hattaway, Michael; Boika Sokolova, & Derek Roper (eds), Shakespeare in the New Europe. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994.
– Kastan, David Scott (ed), A Companion to Shakespeare. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1999.
– Kermode, Frank (ed), Shakespeare: King Lear. 1969.
– Kott, Jan, The Bottom Translation: Marlowe and Shakespeare and the Carnival Tradition. Transl. by Daniela Miedzyrzecka & Lillian Vallee. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern UP, 1987.
– Loomba, Ania, Gender, Race, Renaissance Drama, Bombay [etc.]: Oxford UP, 1992.
– Lupić, Ivan, Prijetvorni subject: transtekstualni okviri Shakespeareovih soneta, Zagreb: L biblioteka Zavoda za znanost o književnosti Filozofskog fakulteta Sveučilišta u Zagrebu, 2007.
– McDonald, Russ, The Bedford Companion to Shakespeare: An Introduction with Documents (2nd ed), Boston & New York: Bedford/ St. Martin’s, 2001.
– Parker, Patricia, & Geoffrey Hartman (eds), Shakespeare and the Question of Theory, London: Methuen, 1985.
– Schoenbaum, Samuel, William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life, New York & Oxford: Oxford UP, 1987.
– Selden, Raman; Peter Widdowson, & Peter Brooker (eds), A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory, London [etc.]: Prentice Hall, 1997.
– Styan, John Louis, The Shakespeare Revolution: Criticism and Performance in the Twentieth Century, Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1977.
– Swift Lenz, Carolyn Ruth; Gayle Greene; & Carol Thomas Neely (eds), The Woman’s Part: Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1980.
– Tillyard, E. M. W, The Elizabethan World Picture, London: Chatto & Windus, 1943.
– Torbarina, Josip, “Predgovor”, in Shakespeare, William, San ivanjske noći. Transl. Milan Bogdanović. Redigirao Josip Torbarina. Zagreb: Matica hrvatska, 1970.
– Vickers, Brian, English Renaissance Literary Criticism, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999.
– Weimann, Robert, Shakespeare and the Popular Tradition in the Theater: Studies in the Social Dimension of Dramatic Form and Function. Schwartz, Robert (ed). Baltimore & London: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1987.
– Wells, Stanley, & Lena Cowe Orlin (eds), Shakespeare: An Oxford Guide, Oxford: Oxford UP, 2003; pp. 391-410.
