123421 SE Literary & Cultural Studies Seminar / BA Paper / MA British/Irish/New English (2018S)

Two of the early modern period's most famous plays are at the focus in this course: Hamlet (first performed some time between 1600 and 1602, during the reign of E. I), which boasts the title role with the highest word count; and Macbeth (first performed in 1611, during the reign of James VI./I.), the shortest of Shakespeare's tragedies that, at the same time, moves along at the fasted pace. Both plays are set north of England (Denmark/Scotland) but stage experiments that explore the question of rule as legitimate/illegitimate that posed burning issues for the English monarchy at the time. Both are deeply interested in the relationship between order and disorder and the role revenge might play for converting them into each other; both feature elements of the supernatural (ghost/witches), while probing deeply into issues of affect psychology (responsibility, guilt, melancholia, madness). While we are going to spend a few lessons per play on the Shakespearean text, its themes, its connections to Renaissance cosmology and medicine (humours, its cultural contexts and the theatrical conventions of the time during which they were written, we are also going to take a look at a modern theatrical performance and a film each to allow you to hone your skills of analysing and interpreting the stylistic devices available to the stage and the film as media that add other codes to the textual.

There will be no student presentations in this class. Instead you are expected to act as a specialist for one lesson of the term, either alone or as a member of a team, depending on the number of participants. How exactly this works in terms of timing, what will be expected of you and what a 'prep mail', 'the double-feedback-loop' and a 'golden nugget' is, in which you are going to participate, will be explained in detail in the first lesson.