L.008.32555 Shakespeare's Tragedies

Lehrende: Cornelia Wächter

Veranstaltungsart: Hauptseminar

Orga-Einheit: Anglistik/Amerikanistik

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Semesterwochenstunden: 2

Unterrichtssprache: Englisch

Min. | Max. Teilnehmerzahl: - | 50

Voraussetzungen und Empfehlungen:
Introduction to Literary Studies

Literatur:
Syllabus and reader will be made available on PAUL prior to the beginning of the lecture period.
Please purchase an annotated critical edition (e.g. Arden or New Cambridge) of Hamlet, Macbeth and Othello.

Kommentar:
In this seminar, we are going to examine three of Shakespeare’s tragedies, namely Hamlet, Macbeth and Othello. We are going to base this course on several theoretical texts, beginning with Aristotle’s conception of the tragedy as explicated in his Poetics. We will then move on to Sir Philip Sidney’s reconceptionalisation of the tragedy for Elizabethan England and will discuss Shakespeare’s tragedies in light of and in their adherence to and digression from classical and Renaissance standards. These and additional theoretical texts will be provided in a reader.Transcending the framework of the tragedy, we are moreover going to examine the plays in light of a broadly New Historicist framework with different focal points, such as political dissidence, race and gender.

Wichtige Hinweise:
There is going to be a reading test on each of the theoretical texts in the respective session.
Instead of a presentation, you are going to be asked to pick about 15 lines of monologue from either of the plays, to analyse and interpret these lines, memorise them, find an appropriate performative interpretation and recite them in the final session of the class.