123221 SE Literature Seminar / BA Paper / MA British/Irish/New English (2017W)

Did you know that Shakespeare invented the classic Hollywood rom-com-plot (lovers - obstacles - happy ending)? In this course we are going to analyse two of the most famous happy comedies from the Elizabethan era A Midsummer Night's Dream (1595/6) and Twelfth Night (1602) - as well as two Jacobean plays. One of the latter is a gender-crossing comedy co-authored by Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker and based on an infamous historical character Moll Frith (The Roaring Girl (1609?)). The other is a typical example of Middleton's satirical city comedies: The Chaste Maid in Cheapside (1613). Elizabethan comedy conventions (play-within-the-play; confused identities; stock figures like 'the fickle lover' or 'the abandoned maiden'; conventional spaces (green world), traditional conflicts (law vs. love), mirroring of character constellations), and how they are restaged or broken will be at the centre of attention with the Shakespeare plays. The relation between the city of London, its citizens and playhouses will be at the focus when discussing the Jacobean texts. Patriarchal power structures, the roles it makes available to women, men and fairies, how these structures and roles are questioned, undermined, bent, messed with and reasserted or reconstituted will be of interest throughout the course.