Selections from Shakespeare I

Course content

This course is an intensive study of Shakespeare’s dramatic texts selected from various genres: comedy, tragedy, history and romance. The course will center around four plays, one representative example from each sub-genre. The emphasis will be on the study of the historical background of Elizabethan England, the culture in which the selected plays were written and performed, the literary style, dramatic principles and content in Shakespeare’s plays such as figurative language, scene development, dialogue, monologue, soliloquy, character development, multiplicity in plot, dramatic irony, thematic elements and their universality.