ENG 323 - Shakespeare I: Comedies and Romances (1)

Love and reconciliation, justice and power, the perils and profits of the imagination, friendship and marriage, control over women and ethnic Others, cross-dressing, dressing up, dressing down: these are some of the themes at the core of Shakespeare’s comedies and romances, some of which provoke more discomfort than laughter (hence the designation of several as “problem plays”). We will attend to Shakespeare’s finely wrought, playful, multivalent, and often irreverent language and to the ways in which performance choices bring out diverse, often contradictory, and uncannily relevant interpretations of the playtexts. Discussions, acting exercises, formal papers, and a final creative project, in which you will be challenged to interpret a short scene from one of the plays for a modern audience by reading closely and unleashing your creative imagination. Prerequisite: writing designated course (W), or ENG 201, ENG 202, or ENG 215. Alternate years.
(Humanities) (Writing Encounter)