Renaissance Drama (332-0-20)
Topic
Shakespeare's Contemporaries
Instructors
Jeffrey A Masten
Meeting Info
University Hall 101: Tues, Thurs 2:00PM - 3:20PM
Overview of class
We will read and analyze some of the extraordinary plays written by Shakespeare's prolific contemporaries between the beginnings of the professional London theatres around 1580 to their forced closing in 1642. We will approach these plays from literary, theatrical, cultural, and book-history perspectives; please be prepared to think across categories. We'll read: a revenge tragedy more popular in its time than Hamlet; a history play about a king and his lower-class, immigrant boyfriend; a shockingly incestuous rewrite of Romeo and Juliet); two very different tragedies with women at their center (one the first original play by an English woman); a marriage anti-comedy with multiple trans resonances; and a prematurely postmodern play where the audience seizes control of the script. These plays will help us think about theatrical genres, about how plays were written, performed and printed, about modes of social organization (marriage, family, sexuality, reproduction, social class, race and ethnicity, monarchy, dynasty, nation, to name a few), about periodization ("Renaissance" or "early modern"?), and about canonicity (for example, the distinction between Shakespeare and "his contemporaries" implied by our curriculum and this course description).
Teaching Method
Mini-lectures; guided analysis and discussion of the plays.
Evaluation Method
Based on participation in discussion, weekly in-class writing, papers, and a final exam.
Class Materials (Required)
Plays include The Spanish Tragedy (Thomas Kyd), Edward II (Christopher Marlowe), Epicoene, or The Silent Woman (Ben Jonson), The Tragedy of Mariam, Fair Queen of Jewry (Elizabeth Cary), The Duchess of Malfi (John Webster), ‘Tis Pity She's a Whore (John Ford), The Knight of the Burning Pestle (Beaumont et al.), together with some historical and critical essays.
Text: English Renaissance Drama, ed. David Bevington, Lars Engle, Katherine Eisaman Maus, and Eric Rasmussen (W.W. Norton). ISBN: 0-393-97655-6. [This anthology contains all the plays we will read and is available new, used, for rent and will be on reserve.] All editions of Renaissance plays differ, often significantly; use this edition only.
Text available at: Norris Bookstore.
Class Attributes
Advanced Expression
Literature and Arts Foundational Discipline
Literature & Fine Arts Distro Area