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Comedy on the Stage: 1670-1790

ENGL 248.001
instructor(s):
MWF 12:00 PM

English dramatic comedy from the period 1670-1790 is more enduring than that of any other period of our literary history except Elizabethan England and, perhaps, comedy since 1900.  This course will deal with from 25 to 30 comedies from 1670-1790, emphasizing the 20 plays which still hold the stage and continue to be preformed today.  The dramatists to be studied will include, from the earlier period (1670-1710), Etheredge, Wycherley, Congreve, and Garguhar, from the middle period (1720-40), Steel, Fielding, and Gay, and from the later period (1760-80), Goldsmith and Sheridan.  This is not just a course in literature: we will study stage design, casting, and modern productions of the plays.  Students interested in the theatre as an art will be able to prepare projects dealing with the production of eighteenth-century comedy on the twentieth-century stage.  No examinations; two or three papers.

fulfills requirements