Shakespeare and Selected
Dramatists of His Time
Introductory Lecture
5th October 2011
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 workshopbased 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
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
How would I do the course?
• Over the summer I would have read:
all the set plays, Wallis and Shepherd’s Studying Plays and
Gurr’s The 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
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
Q1 (1603) SD
Enter in a Dumbe Shew, the King and the
Queene, he sits downe in an Arbor, she leaues
him: Then enters Lucianus with poyson in a
Viall, and powres it in his eares, and goes
away: Then the Queene commeth and findes
him dead: and goes away with the other.