ENGL 4270

Advanced Seminar in Shakespeare

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2014-2015.

Some of Shakespeare's most important dramas are about ancient figures and events: Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Troilus and Cressida, among others. While Shakespeare transmits a classical cultural heritage to his early modern audience, he critically adapts it in thought-provoking and innovative ways. Many of Shakespeare's major characters in these plays act as representatives of classical authority and yet are profoundly in conflict with it. While remaining attentive to complexities and indeterminacies in these texts, what responses-resistance, identification, affirmation, accommodation-are available to an author? What is the political charge of Roman (republican) plays in the context of English monarchy? What can we say about the politics of Shakespeare's adaptive practices? What political and cultural questions, past and present, do they raise?

When Offered Fall.

Breadth Requirement (HB)
Distribution Category (LA-AS)
Satisfies Requirement This course may be used as one of the three pre-1800 courses required of English majors.

Comments Co-meets with ENGL 6270.

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