The
Chandos Portrait The
Chandos Portrait
What Did Shakespeare Look Like?
Shakespeare II - En 356
Dr. Richard Regan
Spring 2009
Office hours: Mon 1-3, Thurs 1-3, and by appointment.
Texts: Signet Classic editions of the plays listed below.
Grading: modified contract system. Three tests and an optional paper, each of equal weight in the final grade.
Attendance: for every three cuts, a point will be deducted from your semester average. Excused absences by written note from a Dean's office, Student Services/Health Center, or your faculty advisor. Excessive absences may result in a failing grade.
Required: 1) two tests based closely on the texts of the plays; 2) weekly summaries/responses to critical articles or WWW sites. These are graded as quizzes and can raise or lower the final grade.
Modified contract: an 8-10 page paper to be eligible for a grade of A or A-. Papers may be rewritten after a conference. Topics must be in writing and approved in conference.
You should submit your papers electronically, written in Microsoft Word. Word has a feature called Track Changes which we can use to write comments on papers (in color). Click here to download a document that contains some suggestions for writing in Word and for emailing papers as attachments.
Final Exam: essays and passages for analysis.
Students with documented learning disabilities, please see me. Alternative methods of testing and evaluation are available.
"The Elizabethan Theatre": a lecture with slides
Designing Shakespeare (home)
Designing Shakespeare (digital resources)
Shakespeare in Performance Institute Acting Exercises
Interactive Shakespeare Project
Touchstone: Shakespeare in Performance
Internet
MetaSites for Shakespeare
Terry Gray's Mr. William Shakespeare and the Internet
Encyclopaedia BritannicaWas Shakespeare Shakespeare? The Authorship Controversy
The Shakespeare Discussion List Archive
Teachers FirstPolydore Vergil's Anglica Historica (1555)
Podcasts (allow several minutes for download)
Shakespeare for Today (55 minutes)
Professor Ronald Rebholtz,
Stanford University, Reunion Homecoming 2004
http://itunes.stanford.edu/
American Shakespeare Center (Blackfriars Playhouse)
Mobile Phone Shakespeare
iTunes Store: Search <Shakespeare> for a free app for the iPhone with searchable text
Mobile Open Source Shakespeare
Here are the instructions for viewing the Class pages and video clips. You'll need a password from Dr. Regan: rjregan@mail.fairfield.edu
Streaming
video is a part of the course because I've written classes to be interactive
with excerpts from performances. You will need a broadband internet connection.
Cable or DSL will work. Satellite is probably OK too. Dialup is too slow for
video.
As you scroll down the course page, for each of the plays you will see a link
called "Click." That will take you to the Class, and when you click
on a video clip you will see a password box. The password will be given out
in class, a security measure because the TEACH Act passed by Congress in 2002
allows only enrolled students to have access to copyrighted materials for
educational purposes. Our method of streaming will open the clip on your computer
in QuickTime, though if you are a Windows user RealPlayer may open it instead.
QuickTime comes standard on Macs, and if you Windows users do not have it,
you can download it (bundled with iTunes) from:
http://www.apple.com/itunes/download.
These video clips are also available from iTunes U, together with audio podcasts of our classes and some documents for each play. The clips can be expanded to full screen. Documents can be viewed as .pdf files in iTunes, but the audio and video files can be synched to your iPod. If you are on the class roster, you have access through:
If you are a Windows user, you can get iTunes free at:
http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/
Schedule
Week of:
January 12 - Introduction to Comic Theory and As You Like It
Read the Works of Shakespeare at MIT
The Internet Shakespeare Editions
RhymeZone Shakespeare Search Engine
Thursday: Special Class on the Sonnets: Guest Lecturer
January 19 - As You Like It
Monday Holiday - MLK
Read: the play and the Signet Introduction, and the articles by Gardner, Erickson, and Howard
CLICK to go to the class on the play.
"Instruction Versus Deception: from Rosalynde to As You Like It"
"Orlando and the Golden World: the Old World and the New in AYLI"Thursday: Special Class on the Sonnets: Guest Lecturer
January 26 - As You Like It
Monday: Special Class on the Sonnets: Guest Lecturer
Thursday: Special Class on the Sonnets: Guest Lecturer
Sonnets
Read: the poems and the Signet Introduction, and the articles by Empson, Smith, and Nowottny
"The amazing web site of Shakespeare's Sonnets"
Shakespeare's Sonnets (1609): A Guide to Electronic Texts
Was Shakespeare Shakespeare? The Authorship Controversy
February 2- Twelfth Night
Read: the play and the Signet Introduction, and the articles by Bamber, Kimbrough, and Howard
CLICK to go to the class on the play."Trevor Nunn's Twelfth Night": Contemporary Film and Classic British Theatre"
February 9 - Julius Caesar
Read: the play and articles by Mack and Kahn
CLICK to go to the class on the play.
PAPER TOPICS
"Caesar"s Reviving Blood: Shakespeare and the Religion of Revolution"
William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (from Perseus at Tufts)
"An English Renaissance Understanding of the Word 'Tragedy'"
"Shakespeare and the Tragic Virtue"
EXAM (after Julius Caesar, perhaps next week)
February 16 - Hamlet (Monday schedule meets on Tuesday)
Read: the play and the Signet Introduction
CLICK to go to the class on the play.
"Shakespeare and the Public Discourse of Sovereignty: 'Reason of State' in Hamlet"
"Who Knows Who Knows Who’s There? An Epistemology of Hamlet (Or, What Happens in the Mousetrap)"
Read: articles by Mack, Ornstein, Heilbrun, and Belsey
"Multiplicity of Meaning in the Last Moments of Hamlet"
Hamlet on the Ramparts (see "Films")
"'Too Much in the Black Sun': Hamlet's First Soliloquy, A Kristevan View
"An English Renaissance Understanding of the Word 'Tragedy'"
SPRING HOLIDAYS
March 9 - Othello
Read: the play and the Signet Introduction, and the articles by Mack and Sprengnether
CLICK to go to the class on the play.
"'That Which Heaven Hath Forbid the Ottomites':The Turks in Shakespeare's Othello"
Shakespeare on Screen: Threshold Aesthetics in Oliver Parker's Othello
(access to video clips)
Cinthio's Tale: The Source of Shakespeare's Othello
Bibliography on Shakespeare's Women
March 16 - Measure for Measure
Read: the play and the Signet Introduction, and the article by Poulsen
CLICK to go to the class on the play.
"Desperate Measures: Politics and the Process of Performance"
"Vincentio's Fraud: Boundary and Chaos, Abstinence and Orgy in Measure for Measure" (click on title)
"The Role of the Clown in Shakespeare's Theatre"
PAPERS DUE
March 23 - King Lear
Read: the play and the Signet Introduction, and the articles by Mack, Bamber, and Brown
CLICK to go to the class on the play.
"King Lear in its Own Time: The Difference That Death Makes"
March 30 - King
Lear
"King Lear Beyond Reason: Love and Justice in the Family"
"Performing the Bodies of King Lear"
(see "Introductory notes on Tragedy" links)
EXAM
Notes on Macbeth
April 6 - Antony and Cleopatra
no class Thursday
Read: the play and the Signet Introduction, and the articles by Danby, Adelman, and Novy
CLICK to go to the class on the play.
Plutarch on Antony and Cleopatra
"Roman Letters and Egyptian Performatives"
A Review of Janet Adelman's "Suffocating Mothers"
no class Monday
April 20 - The Winter's Tale
Read: the play and the Signet Introduction, and the articles by Tillyard, Knight, Neely, and Kahn
CLICK to go to the class on the play.
April 27 - The Tempest
Read: the play and the Signet Introduction, and the articles by Knox, Leininger, and Greenblatt
Dante's definition of allegory
CLICK to go to the class on the play.
"Natural and Colonial Education in Shakespeare's The Tempest
FINAL EXAM: Saturday, May 2 at 4 pm
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