Lunatics, Lovers and Poets: Shakespeare's Comic Worlds
Shakespeare wrote more comedies than either tragedies or histories. Clearly he and his first audiences delighted in the characters and ravishing poetry which create his comic worlds, whether it’s the Forest of Arden, Venice, France or some unidentified Mediterranean island. However even as Shakespeare revelled in the confusions of lovers and shepherds, fairies and fools he knew that comedy was a serious business and through provocative characters, satire and moments of pathos he addresses some of the most pressing questions of his age: the place of outsiders and exiles; the position of women; the relationship between justice and mercy; the responsibilities of rule, and the significance of his own dramatic art. He wasn’t afraid to mingle comedy with tragedy or kings with clowns and in doing so he wrote some of the most profound plays of all time.
In As You Like It, Jaques declares that ‘all the world’s a stage’ inviting you to join an imaginative exploration that will point up the absurdities and profundities of human life. This course gives you the opportunity to decide what you think about Shakespeare’s comic dramas as we study five of his plays from the beginning, middle and end of his writing career within the context of Renaissance culture. Each play will be studied in-depth with discussion and close-reading at the heart of each class.
Whatever Shakespeare’s literary aspirations were they had to be matched with commercial demands as playwrights sought to outdo each other and attract audiences to the theatres in a crowded and competitive marketplace. You will find out where Shakespeare got his stories from as well as how the social, political and cultural history of Elizabethan and Jacobean England affected his writing. At each stage of the course, class discussions are enhanced by the comparison of different film and stage adaptations of the plays. The course begins by studying The Taming of the Shrew—one of Shakespeare’s earliest plays and still one of his most controversial. From there we will move on to The Merchant of Venice, considering how interpretations of it have shifted since it was written and discussing the enduring fascination of Shylock, one of Shakespeare’s most compelling creations. No class on the comedies would be complete without at least one cross-dressed heroine and so the next play you study will be As You Like It, in which Rosalind runs witty rings around the hapless Orlando and a group of unlikely people find themselves thrown together in a forest. Then we shall study All’s Well That Ends Well, a less familiar comedy and one that has been labelled a ‘problem play’: you can decide whether its combination of fairy-tale and social authenticity is problematic or not. Finally, we study The Tempest, one of Shakespeare’s last plays in which he explores the choice between revenge and forgiveness and the power of theatre to enchant and transform.
With witty lovers, neglected wives, banished rulers, wise shepherds, absurd clowns, spirits that will enchant you and heroes and heroines who will move you to tears and laughter, Shakespeare’s comedies are equally seductive and profound. This course traces Shakespeare’s development of comedy, providing an introduction to his dramatic writing as well as the opportunity to study five plays in depth. It includes trips to performances at The Globe Theatre in London and by the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon.
Course requirements
Students are required to write one paper of 1,500 to 2,000 words and deliver one oral presentation.
Tutor Biography
Lynn Robson, B.A., M.A., Ph.D., is a lecturer at Regent's Park College, University of Oxford, where she teaches sixteenth- and seventeenth-century literature. She has also taught classes on Shakespeare for the Oxford/Berkeley Program for the past four years. She is a dedicated theatregoer and tries to keep up with the latest productions at the RSC, Royal National and Globe Theatres. She is still one play short of her ambition to see all of Shakespeare's plays!
Tutor Contact Details:
Regent’s Park College, Pusey Street, Oxford OX1 2LU, England, UK
E-mail: lynn.robson@regents.ox.ac.uk
If you would like any further information about any aspect of the course, please contact me.
Reading List
Please try and ensure that you read the required plays in annotated editions as they provide useful background information, often give a performance history and have invaluable notes. Suggested editions: Arden Shakespeare, Oxford Shakespeare or Cambridge Shakespeare.
In previous classes, students have also found the Folger Shakespeare Library editions easily accessible, user-friendly and very portable!
You need to bring the books on the Required Reading List with you to Oxford. The Supplementary Reading List suggests other plays that are immediately relevant to the course (but are not required reading) and film versions that it would be useful for you to have seen. The Further Reading List contains background works and criticism.
All books on the reading list are in print and most of them are in paperback.
Required reading
William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew, The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, All’s Well That Ends Well, The Tempest
Supplementary reading
**You do not need to read these plays in order to do the class**
William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night, Measure for Measure
Films
It’s always useful to see plays as well as read them. The BBC Shakespeare (available on DVD) offers some excellent versions of the plays. Film adaptations I’m likely to use in class are the following:
The Taming of the Shrew: dir. Franco Zeferelli (starring Richard Burton & Elizabeth Taylor); BBC Shakespeare (starring John Cleese). For a witty, modern take on this play you might like to watch 10 Things I Hate About You
The Merchant of Venice: dir. Trevor Nunn (starring Henry Goodman); dir. Michael Radford (starring Al Pacino); BBC Shakespeare (starring Warren Mitchell)
As You Like It: dir. Kenneth Branagh.
As Well That Ends Well: BBC Shakespeare
The Tempest: Prospero’s Books, dir. Peter Greenaway; A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy, dir. Woody Allen. For sci-fi enthusiasts, Forbidden Planet is an adaptation of The Tempest!
You could watch film versions of the supplementary plays instead of reading them. I’d suggest
Much Ado About Nothing: dir. Kenneth Branagh (starring him and Emma Thompson)
Twelfth Night: dir. Trevor Nunn (starring Imogen Stubbs, Toby Stephens, Helen Bonham-Carter).
Measure for Measure: BBC Shakespeare
Further reading:
These are general, introductory texts which give you a sense of Shakespeare’s life and career and the culture he inhabited. All of them are available in paperback versions. If you would like more specific introductory reading please contact me.
Jonathan Bate, Soul of the Age: The Life, Mind and World of William Shakespeare (Penguin, 2008).
Julia Briggs, This Stage-Play World: Texts and Contexts 1580-1625 (Oxford University Press, 1997).
David Scott Kastan, A Companion to Shakespeare (Blackwell, 1999).
Frank Kermode, The Age of Shakespeare, (Phoenix, 2005).
Frank Kermode, Shakespeare’s Language, (Penguin, 2001).
James Shapiro, 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare, (Faber & Faber, 2005).
Stanley Wells and Lena Cowen Orlin, Shakespeare: An Oxford Guide (Oxford University Press, 2003).
Credit and Enrollment Information
X452 English
(EDP 284216)