Veronika Ruttkay
ruttkayveron@gmail.com
BMA-ANGD-CI3.301
Autumn 2011
Shakespeare in 18th and 19th Century British Culture
Tue 8:30–10:00
Fri 8:30–10:00
Rm 443
Rm 423/a
Course Schedule
1
(13 Sept)
Introduction
2
(16 Sept)
Preliminaries: adaptation, appropriation, reception
Set text: Peter Sabor and Paul Yachnin, “Introduction,”in Peter Sabor and Paul
Yachnin, eds., Shakespeare and the Eighteenth Century (Ashgate, 2008), 1–5
3
(20 Sept)
Improving the original
Set text: Nahum Tate: The History of King Lear, in Daniel Fischlin and Mark Fortier,
eds, Adaptations of Shakespeare: A critical anthology of plays from the seventeenth
century to the present (London/ New York: Routledge, 2000), 66-96
4
(23 Sept)
The Shakespearean Act: David Garrick
Set text: David Garrick: Jubilee Ode to Shakespeare (1769), in Brian Vickers, ed.,
Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage,Vol 5: 1765–1774 (London and New York:
Routledge, 2005 (1979)), 256 –267
Further reading: Péter Dávidházi, The Romantic Cult of Shakespeare: Literary
Reception in Anthropological Perspective (Basingstoke/New York: Macmillan/St.
Martin’s Press, 1998)
5
(27 Sept)
Johnson’s Shakespeare
Set text: Samuel Johnson, Notes on King Lear, in Dr. Johnson on Shakespeare, 122 –
127
Further reading: G. F. Parker, Johnson’s Shakespeare (Oxford: Clarendon, 1989)
6
(30 Sept)
Lear and the problem of representation
Set texts: Charles Lamb: “On the Tragedies of Shakespeare Considered with
Reference to their Fitness for Stage-Representation;” John Keats: “On Sitting Down to
Read King Lear Once Again”
Further reading: Jonathan Arac, “The Media of Sublimity: Johnson and Lamb on King
Lear,” Studies in Romanticism, 26:2 (Summer 1987), 209-220
7
(4 Oct)
Character criticism: Macbeth
Veronika Ruttkay
ruttkayveron@gmail.com
BMA-ANGD-CI3.301
Autumn 2011
Set text: William Richardson: from A Philosophical Analysis of Some of
Shakespeare’s Remarkable Characters (1774)
8
(7 Oct)
Re-interpreting the Lady
Set texts: Sarah Siddons: “Remarks on the Character of Lady Macbeth, in Jonathan
Bate, ed., The Romantics on Shakespeare (Penguin, 1992), 435–440; William Hazlitt
on Lady Macbeth; S. T. Coleridge: “Mrs. Siddons” (Sonnets on Eminent Characters)
Further reading: Laura Engel, “The Personating of Queens: Lady Macbeth, Sarah
Siddons, and the creation of female celebrity in the eighteenth century,” in Nick
Moschovakis, ed., Macbeth: New Critical Essays (New York and London: Routledge,
2008), 240-257; Michael D. Bristol, “How many children did she have?,” in John J.
Joughin, ed., Philosophical Shakespeares (New York and London: Routledge, 2000),
19-34
9
(11 Oct)
Macbeth and revolution 1
Set text: S. T. Coleridge: “Fire, Famine, and Slaughter”
caricatures by James Gillray and Thomas Rawlandson
Further reading: Jonathan Bate, Shakespearean Constitutions: Politics, Theatre,
Criticism 1730-1830 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1989)
10
(14 Oct)
Macbeth and revolution 2
Set texts: Edmund Burke: from Reflections on the Revolution in France; William
Wordsworth: from The Prelude (1805), Book VII, Book X
Further reading: Frans De Bruyn, “William Shakespeare and Edmund Burke: Literary
Allusion in Eighteenth-Century British Political Rhetoric, in Shakespeare and the
Eighteenth Century, 85–102; Mary Jacobus, ‘“The Great Stage where Senators
Perform”: Macbeth and the Politics of Romantic Theatre’, Studies in Romanticism,
22:3 (Fall 1983) 353-387
11
(18 Oct)
The Aesthetics of Murder
Set text: Thomas De Quincey: ‘On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth’ (1823), in
Jonathan Bate, ed., The Romantics on Shakespeare (Penguin, 1992), 432–435
12
(21 Oct)
The problem of Hamlet
Set text: Margreta de Grazia, “Hamlet Before Its Time”, Modern Language Quarterly
62:4 (Dec 2001)
Further reading: Geren Bar-On Santor, “Looking for ‘Newtonian’ Laws in
Shakespeare: The Mystifying Case of the Character of Hamlet,” in Shakespeare and
the Eighteenth Century, 151–164
13
(25 Oct)
The romantic Hamlet
Veronika Ruttkay
ruttkayveron@gmail.com
BMA-ANGD-CI3.301
Autumn 2011
Set text: Coleridge and Hazlitt on Hamlet, in Jonathan Bate, ed., The Romantics on
Shakespeare (Penguin, 1992), 311–326
Further reading: Peter J. Manning, “Manufacturing the Romantic image: Hazlitt and
Coleridge lecturing,” in James Chandler and Kevin Gilmartin eds. Romantic
Metropolis: The Urban Scene of British Culture, 1780-1840 (Cambridge: CUP, 2005)
227–245
14
“lame and impotent hero”
(28 Oct)
Set text: Shelley and Byron on Hamlet, in Jonathan Bate, ed., The Romantics on
Shakespeare (Penguin, 1992), 335–349
Further reading: Anne Barton, “Byron and Shakespeare,” in Drummond Bone, ed.,
The Cambridge Companion to Byron (Cambridge: CUP, 2004), 224–235
Autumn Break
15
(8 Nov)
Fairy Enchantment: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Set text: Mary Robinson: “Oberon to Titania”
Fuseli’s MND paintings
Further reading: Judith Pascoe, ‘“That fluttering, tinselled crew”: Women Poets and
Della Cruscanism’, Romantic Theatricality: Gender, Poetry, and Spectatorship
(Ithaca and London: Cornell UP, 1997), 68-94
10–11 Nov: Institute conference (no class)
16
(15 Nov)
Shakespeare in Gothic romance
Set texts: Ann Radcliffe: “On the Supernatural in Poetry”; from The Romance of the
Forest
Further reading: Marcie Frank, “Fairy Time from Shakespeare to Scott,” in
Shakespeare and the Eighteenth Century, 103–117; Angela Wright, “In Search of
Arden: Ann Radcliffe’s William Shakespeare,” in John Drakakis, Dale Townshend,
eds., Gothic Shakespeares (Routledge, 2008), 111–130
17
(18 Nov)
A Shakespearean education
Set text: Mary Lamb: “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (from Tales from Shakespeare)
Further reading: Felicity James, “‘Wild Tales’ from Shakespeare: Readings of Charles
and Mary Lamb,” Shakespeare 2.2 (Dec 2006), 152–167
ESSAY PROPOSALS DUE
18
(22 Nov)
Consultation
Veronika Ruttkay
ruttkayveron@gmail.com
19
(25 Nov)
BMA-ANGD-CI3.301
Autumn 2011
Novelising Shakespeare
Set text: Jane Austen: Mansfield Park (1811)
20
(29 Nov)
Shakespeare as Supreme Creator
Set texts: Robert Browning: from Essay on Shelley (1852); “The Names”
Further reading: Danny Karlin, “‘The Names’: Robert Browning’s ‘Shaksperean
Show’,” in Victorian Shakespeare: Literature and Culture. Vol 2 , ed. Gail Marshall
and Adrian Poole (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 150–169; Robert Sawyer, “The
Shakespeareanization of Robert Browning,” in Christy Desmet and Robert Sawyer,
eds., Shakespeare and Appropriation (London and New York: Routledge, 1999), 142–
159
21
(2 Dec)
Reading week (consultation by email)
22
(6 Dec)
Reading week (consultation by email)
23
(9 Dec)
The Madness of King George (film)
END-TERM ESSAYS DUE
24
(13 Dec)
Discussion of the film (based on question sheet)
25
(16 Dec)
FINAL MARKS
Assessment
Students wishing to earn credits for this class will have to
- participate regularly in classroom discussions
- give a presentation (based on one of the set texts and/or secondary readings)
- and write a home essay of approx. 8-10 pages (Times New Roman, 12p, double
spaced) in which they rely on at least three secondary sources.
A list of recommended essay topics will be announced in class.
Essays containing PLAGIARISM in any form will be automatically failed.