Shakespeare: Text, Stage, Screen
Michaelmas Term 2013, Mondays 5-6pm
Course Coordinator: Prof. Nicholas Grene (ngrene@tcd.ie)
Lecturer: Dr. Ema Vyroubalová, (vyroubae@tcd.ie)
The aim of this course is to examine five selected plays of Shakespeare--an
early comedy and history, a so-called problem play, one of the later tragedies
and a late romance--to explore the nature of the original theatrical texts, and
the ways they have been reconceived in later stagings and in the modern
cinema.
Course outline
Week
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Date
23/9
30/9
7/10
14/10
21/10
28/10
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
11/11
18/11
25/11
2/12
9/12
Topic (Lecturer)
Introduction (NG)
The Taming of the Shrew, performance (NG)
The Taming of the Shrew, text (EV)
Richard III, text (NG)
Richard III, performance (EV)
Measure for Measure, text (NG) -- to be rescheduled for a
different day in the same week due to Bank Holiday
STUDY WEEK
Measure for Measure, performance (EV)
Macbeth, text (NG)
Macbeth, performance (EV)
The Tempest, text (EV)
The Tempest, performance (NG)
Required text
Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen (eds.), RSC Shakespeare: the Complete
Works (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008). You will also want to consult
the scholarly editions of the prescribed plays in the Arden, Oxford and
Cambridge series.
Films and adaptations
Copies of the following are available in the Library for individual viewing:
Looking for Richard (1996), dir. Al Pacino
Macbeth (1971), dir. Roman Polanski
Macbeth (1978), dir. Philip Casson
Maqbool (2003), dir. Vishal Bhardwaj (Hindi-Urdu adaptation of Macbeth)
Measure for Measure (1979), dir. Desmond David
Measure for Measure (2007), dir. Bob Komar
Richard III (1996), dir. Richard Loncraine
Richard III (1955), dir. Laurence Olivier
Shakespeare Re-told (2005), includes Macbeth, script by Peter Moffatt, dir.
Mark Brozel and The Taming of the Shrew, script by Sally Wainwright, dir.
David Richards
Shakespeare: the animated tales (1992), dir. various
Silent Shakespeare (2004), dir. various
The Taming of the Shrew (1967), dir. Franco Zeffirelli
The Tempest (1979), dir. Derek Jarman
Throne of Blood (1957), dir. Akira Kurosawa (Japanese adaptation of
Macbeth)
Secondary reading
Reference
Brown, Richard Danson, and David Johnson (eds.), A Shakespeare Reader:
Sources and Criticism (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000)
Bullough, Geoffrey, Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare 8 vols.
(London: Routledge; NY: Columbia, 1957-75)
Gurr, Andrew, Playgoing in Shakespeare's London (Cambridge: Cambridge
UP, 1996)
Kastan, David Scott (ed,), A Companion to Shakespeare (Oxford: Blackwell,
1999)
Schoenbaum, Samuel, William Shakespeare: a Documentary Life (Oxford:
Clarendon,1975)
Thompson, Peter, Shakespeare's Theatre (London: Routledge, 1992)
Wells, Stanley, Shakespeare: a Bibliographical Guide (Oxford: Clarendon,
1990)
Critical Works
Barber, C.L., Shakespeare's Festive Comedy (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1959)
Barber, C.L. & Wheeler, Richard P.L.A., The Whole Journey: Shakespeare's
Power of Development (Berkeley, London: U of California P, 1986)
Belsey, Catherine, Shakespeare & the Loss of Eden (Basingstoke: Palgrave,
2001)
Burnett, Mark, Shakespeare and World Cinema (Cambridge: Cambridge UP
2013)
Callaghan, Dympna, Shakespeare Without Women: Representing gender and
Race on the Renaissance Stage (London: Routledge, 2000)
Crowl, Samuel, Shakespeare and Film (New York: WW Norton, 2008)
Greenblatt, Stephen, Shakespearean Negotiations (Oxford: Clarendon, 1988)
Grene, Nicholas, Shakespeare's Tragic Imagination (Basingstoke: Macmillan,
1996)
Grene, Nicholas, Shakespeare’s Serial History Plays (Cambridge: Cambridge
UP, 2002)
Gurr, Andrew, The Shakespearean Stage, 1574-1642 (Cambridge:Cambridge
UP, 1992)
Hattaway, Michael (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare’s
History Plays Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2002)
Hindle, Maurice, Studying Shakespeare on Film (Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2007)
Holderness, Graham (ed.), The Shakespeare Myth (Manchester: Manchester
UP, 1988)
Hope, Jonathan, Shakespeare and Language (A&C Black, 2010)
Jackson, Russell (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Film
(Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2007)
Jones, Emrys, Scenic Form in Shakespeare (Oxford: Clarendon, 1971)
Jones, John, Shakespeare at Work (Oxford: Oxford UP, [1995] 1999)
Kennedy, Dennis, Looking at Shakespeare (Cambridge: Cambridge UP,
1993)
Kott, Jan, Shakespeare Our Contemporary (London: Methuen, 1967)
Marcus, Leah S., Puzzling Shakespeare (Berkeley, LA, London: U. of
California P., 1988)
Orgel, Stephen, Impersonations: Performing Gender in Shakespeare’s
England
(Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996)
Richardson, Catherine, Shakespeare and Material Culture (Oxford UP, 2011)
Rutter, Carol Chillington, Enter the body: women and representation on
Shakespeare’s stage (London: Routledge, 2001)
Thompson, Ann, and Sasha Roberts (eds.), Women Reading Shakespeare:
An Anthology of Criticism (Manchester: Manchester UP, 1997)
Shapiro, James, 1599: a year in the life of Shakespeare (London: Faber,
2005)
Shaughnessy, Robert (ed.), Shakespeare on Film: New Casebooks
(Basingstoke: Palgrave, 1998)
Sher, Antony, The year of the king: an actor’s diary and sketchbook (London:
Chatto and Windus, 1985)
Speaight, Robert, Shakespeare on the Stage (London: Collins, 1973)
Vickers, Brian, Appropriating Shakespeare (New Haven, London: Yale UP,
1993)
Learning Outcomes
At the end of this course students will:





Have a clear concept of the different genres in which Shakespeare
worked
Be conscious of the shaping impact of the early modern theatre on his
plays
Be aware of the changing production styles of Shakespearean staging
in later periods
Be alert to the interpretative possibilities of different productions of an
individual play
Have sufficient knowledge of cinematic technique to be able to
analyse specific film versions of the plays and the directorial choices
involved

Be able to apply their experience of the course to the interpretation of
other theatrical texts.
Nicholas Grene
Ema Vyroubalova