EL2011: Encounters with Shakespeare
Course Guide:: Handbook:: Good Writing Guide:: Reading List :: MyAberdeen
CREDIT POINTS: 30
Course co-ordinator: Dr Andrew Gordon
Pre-requisite(s): Available only to students in Programme Year 2 or above who have passed 30 credit points in Level 1 English courses OR from literature courses in a foreign language.
So you think you know Shakespeare? This course invites you to think again. Studying a range of plays we seek to get behind the mythology of Shakespeare, and rediscover the dynamic inventiveness of the Elizabethan theatre. Shakespeare and his contemporaries were the principal players in a period of literary experimentation that reinvented the possibilities of literature. The playhouse was a new cultural venue in Shakespeare's time, and the language itself was a rapidly evolving medium to which drama gave voice. Building upon study of the language of Shakespeare and the conditions of the Elizabethan playhouse, this course examines the ways in which the theatre imagined and debated key issues of the period. What was the place of Shakespeare's theatre within the culture of his time? How did his plays engage with controversial questions of politics, religion and gender? And how did he bridge the demands of a form that was both popular entertainment and a leisure activity of the elite? Encounters with Shakespeare is your chance to find out.
2 one-hour lectures, 1 one-hour tutorial per week and one screening.
1st Attempt: 1 two-hour examination (50%), in-course assessment: 500-600 work written exercise (5%), 1200 word first essay (15%), 1500 word second essay (20%) and tutorial work (10%).
Resit: 1 two-hour written examination (100%).