Department of English

In this course we will discuss the ways that Elizabethan and Jacobean playwrights such as Shakespeare, Webster, Jonson, Ford, and Marlowe, used Italy as a backdrop to stage their ideas of gender roles, sexual orientations, class, and other matters of play and politics in their performances. We will read such works as: A Winter's Tale; Cymbelline; Othello; Tamburaline the Great; The Jew of Malta; Volpone; Women Beware Women; The Maid's Tragedy; The White Devil; The Duchess of Malfi; and 'Tis Pity She's a Whore alongside selections from Boccaccio's Decameron, Castiglione's Book of the Courtier, and Machiavelli's Prince. We will also read relevant works of literary criticism. Graded work will be 2 short papers, one presentation, one presentation write-up, and a longer final paper.