Shakespeare and Selected Dramatists of His Time

1. Shakespeare and Selected Dramatists of His Time Introductory Lecture 5th October 2011

2. Parameters of the Course • You may write on any Shakespeare or early modern play 1574-1642 • You may only take the set editions into the exam (this may narrow your choice of exam texts) • Annotations must be confined to a few words and books with too much writing may be confiscated – you can check with your tutor before the exam that yours is OK. • Before Christmas, we will let you have a list of 10 plays from which the 5 Section A extracts will be taken. One will be by Jonson and one by Marlowe, the others will be from Shakespeare.

3. Dates for your Diary • Week 5, Wed 2nd – Sat 5th November 2011, Faustus in Warwick Arts Centre Studio Theatre (7.45 pm) • Term 3. Tuesday 1st May 2012, Propeller Winter’s Tale at Belgrade Theatre, Coventry. Wednesday 2nd May, revision workshop on Winter’s Tale, run by PP and TG and (hopefully) someone from Propeller.

4. Aims of the course Have consolidated their skills in reading narrative, poetry and drama Comment illuminatingly on a passage of dramatic poetry Analyse the dramatic structure, appearance and effect of a scene Comment on the ideas in a play and the way they are presented Know enough about Elizabethan and Jacobean conditions of performance to think about how the dramatists use the resources of the stage and how the ensemble nature of theatrical companies influenced play composition and production Have sufficient experience of live and film performances of the plays to be able to talk about the impact of particular scenes today Have some familiarity with problems of textual transmission and editing in the plays Know a group of plays well enough to understand how the separate scenes and speeches of the play contribute to the whole Know a range of plays such that they can begin to ask questions about Shakespeare’s development Know some plays by Shakespeare, Marlowe and Jonson/Webster/Middleton so that they can address the issue of connections and dependencies between them Have some critical awareness of the traditions of Shakespeare criticism Use their knowledge of Shakespeare to think about problems which concern them       Understand how some of the major issues and themes dramatised in Shakespeare’s plays – love, war, sexuality, religion, law, civilization, race, etc – function in an early modern context while continuing to challenge readers and spectators today.

5. Assessment 1 i) 1 x 5000-word Essay OR Creative Project (50%) to be submitted by 12pm on Tuesday, Week 10 (Spring Term) [For examples of both essays and creative projects see/click here> Student Work 2008-09] The CREATIVE PROJECT consists of a piece of creative work (adaptation, music, photography, creative writing, screenplay and so on) + a Reflective Essay (2500 words). There is no strict word limit to the Creative Project itself, but we encourage you to be realistic and keep the task on a manageable scale (e.g. write a short story rather than a novel; a film scenario and sample scene rather than an entire screenplay; a sonata rather than a symphony...). You will have to have your project approved by your tutor by FRIDAY OF WEEK 5, SPRING TERM. The Reflective Essay is a crucial component of your submission: in it, you will: describe the rationale of your project (i.e. why was it worth doing?); provide firm evidence of research and reading (e.g. if you are adapting Hamlet, you should show some awareness of the history and theory of adaptation); reflect on the successes and shortcomings of the finished product. The Reflective Essay should include a bibliography and be presented to normal scholarly standards.

6. Assessment 2 ii) 1 x 3h 15min exam in May (50%). Students must answer one question from both Section A and Section B. Assessment remains the same for all modes (seminar, hybrid, without chairs) of taking the module. It is important to state that the assessment is not in any way weighted in favour of any mode of learning. EN301 essay titles and exam questions have always sought to elicit the widest variety of creative and critical responses. In the Assessed Essay/Creative Project, for example, students can choose from a list of titles or are free to devise their own title in consultation with their tutor. In theory and in practice, any learning experience – whether seminar- or workshop-based or even extra-curricular – might form the basis for Assessed Work. Formative Assessment: By the beginning of Summer Term, every student on the module will have the chance to submit / present and receive tutor feedback on: i) 1 x practice Section A response ii) 1 x 1500 word passage or detailed plan of their Assessed Essay/Creative Project to be submitted by FRIDAY of WEEK 5, SPRING TERM. (Important: your tutor will not be able to offer substantial feedback after this date; also your tutor is not permitted to comment on a complete draft of the essay, so please do not ask him or her to do so.) iii) At least 1 review (book, film, theatre, etc) and/or class presentation and/or a student-led seminar

7. Texts • TERM 1 texts: Weeks 1-5: Hamlet, Dr Faustus, Love's Labours Lost, A Midsummer Night's Dream Week 7-10: Jew of Malta, Merchant of Venice, Edward II, Richard II, Henry IV Parts 1 and 2 • TERM 2 texts: Bartholomew Fair, Epicoene, As You Like It, Twelfth Night Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, The Tempest,The Winter's Tale

8. How would I do the course? • Over the summer I would have read: all the set plays, Wallis and Shepherd’s Studying Plays andGurr’sThe Shakespearean Stage • Would already have a good idea of the plays I want to write on – in my case that might well be a tragedy avoidance exercise • As soon as I knew the Section A list, I would start to think about which extracts I might like to answer on, and save those plays for the exam (strategies here might be influenced by number of performances available) • I would then try to work out what I wanted my essay to be on and then think hard about which other plays I could usefully write on in exam

9. Week by week reading Of course this will affected by what your seminar tutor wants you to do. However, if I were set nothing I would • read one play again • watch a DVD of the other (BBC Shakespeare invaluable here). • Read the introductions to at least one single volume edition in Arden, Cambridge or Oxford • Casebook or Critical Heritage, Cambridge Companion, Blackwell’s Companion to Shakespeare’s Works

10. Q1 (1603) SD Enter in a DumbeShew, the King and the Queene, he sits downe in an Arbor, she leaues him: Then enters Lucianuswith poyson in a Viall, and powres it in his eares, and goes away: Then the Queenecommeth and findes him dead: and goes away with the other.