123421 SE Literary & Cultural Studies Seminar / BA Paper / MA British/Irish/New English (2017S)

This seminar will have Shakespearean tragedies with a focus on his Roman Plays (Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus) plus aspects of the body at its centre. We will move from the body as metaphor and its representation in literature, through some historicizing of bodily reactions such as emotions (love or anger), on to Shakespeare's Roman Plays and will end with some work on the difference between Shakespeare as drama, as theatre and as filmic adaptation. By the end of the course students should be able to demonstrate a fuller appreciation of aspects of the body in the context of Shakespearean tragedies. They will also have gained an insight into trends in critical scholarship on Shakespeare and they should be able to discuss and evaluate filmic adaptations and stage productions.