Shakespeare: Culture, Text, Performance (I)

In this course we will read Shakespeare's plays and poems in the context of the religious, political, and domestic culture of early modern England, yet also with the goal of understanding their relevance today-especially in terms of character, gender, race, and moral agency. We will pay particular attention to Elizabethan and Jacobean staging conventions, and to the tension between the plays as poetic works to be read and as scripts to be performed in aristocratic households and popular amphitheaters. We will also touch on modern film adaptations and interpretations, comparing them with original stagings and contexts.