Shakespeare

Course Goals

No single author has been as widely celebrated over the past four hundred years as William Shakespeare. Arriving in London as a young man aiming at a career as an actor, he returned to his native country town in his fifties the most popular playwright of his day. His plays blend a profound knowledge of human nature, an unrivaled fertility of language, and a vivid sense of spectacle and stagecraft. Once inside his works, playgoers and readers find themselves happily under the spell of this most dazzling of showmen. My goal in this course is to help you gain access to the works and world of William Shakespeare.

Through close study of several of Shakespeare's play, you will

  • gain familiarity with the physical characteristics and conventions of Renaissance theater;
  • develop a sense for the variety of voices and accents and styles of English employed by the playwright;
  • see the range of kinds of plays Shakespeare can write, the sort of comedy and tragedy he creates, the recurrent themes and situations he develops;
  • probe some of the depths of Shakespeare's psychological and political analyses;
  • experience something of the range of staging possibilities and problems presented by Shakespeare;
  • learn how to use effectively the scholarly resources available in print and on the Internet concerning him.

All of this will serve to get you in the door. You will then have the rest of your lives to continue your exploration of Shakespeare's world. You will not use him up.


Goals of Courses in the Literature Category

ENG 345, Shakespeare, satisfies the Literature Category of the General Education program. It also, therefore, pursues the goals common to all General Education Literature courses.

Objective 1: Increased ability to understand and appreciate the nature and uses of language.

Objective 2: Increased awareness of the historic, cultural, spiritual, and personal contexts of literature

Objective 3: Increased appreciation of the unique opportunities for lifelong learning afforded by reading and thinking about literary texts.