Department of English

An intensive study of nine plays: eight by Shakespeare--A Midsummer Night's Dream, Twelfth Night, Richard III, Richard II, 1 Henry IV, Romeo and Juliet, King Lear and The Tempest--and a play to be selected for individual analysis by each student. The course will also consider as background of other plays by Shakespeare (especially Hamlet) and his contemporaries. In addition to an analysis of structure, language and characterization, course topics will include Elizabethan culture, printing and stage history and issues of critical theory.