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Shakespeare's Rivals, Collaborators, and Contemporaries

ENGL 031.401
also offered as: COML 031
instructor(s):
MW 2-3:30pm

Course Online: Synchronous Format

Most people have never read a play from Renaissance England by anyone other than Shakespeare, but the Bard was joined by a host of other great playwrights in one of the most exciting periods of English literary and theatrical history. As numerous theaters suddenly popped up around London in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the stages were filled with tragedies, comedies, histories, romances, and tragicomedies. This course will survey some of the plays written by Shakespeare's rivals, influences, followers, and collaborators, including Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Fletcher, and the ever-popular author, Anonymous, among others. Our focus will be on the structure and language of the plays, their dramatic form and genres, and their relations to the pressing issues and questions of the time. No previous experience with Shakespeare or Renaissance drama is required.

fulfills requirements
Sector 1: Theory and Poetics of the Standard Major
Sector 3: Early Literature to 1660 of the Standard Major