Advanced Seminar in Shakespeare

Course code: LIT 320/520

Term and year: Spring 2025

Day and time: Mondays 15:30-18:15 (plus Friday Feb. 28 make-up)

Instructor: Andrew L. Giarelli, Ph.D.

Instructor contact: andrew.giarelli@aauni.edu

Consultation hours: Tuesdays 12:00-14:00 on MS-Teams or by appointment.

 

Credits US/ECTS	3/6	Level	Advanced
Length	15 weeks	Pre-requisite
Contact hours	42 hours	Course type	BA/MA Required/Elective

1.   Course Description

“He was not of an age, but for all time!” – Ben Jonson[1]

 

So far Ben Jonson, Shakespeare’s admiring rival, has been right. That is partly why reading Shakespeare is so challenging and rewarding. How shall we understand his love sonnets, for example? By our understandings of “love”, or by his? How did he – or his culture, many contemporary critics would say instead – understand “love”? Or – in his plays – history, or gender, or nationhood, or religion, or our very concepts of the self and the universe? How do we accomplish an understanding of Shakespeare’s writing within the context of his culture? Is that even possible, or worth trying to do? Are there other ways to read Shakespeare, and what were and are they? If nothing else, we ought to start with a little humility, given all those questions.

We will start by closely reading selected sonnets from the 1590s, the climactic decade of the Elizabethan era. Then we will closely read one comedy, two histories, two tragedies and one romance from the early 17^th century, the dawn of the Jacobean era. We will pay attention not only to the socio-historic context but also to the long history of Shakespeare criticism.

 

2.   Student Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of this course, students should be able to:

• closely read selected sonnets and plays from the 1590s, in other words during the climactic years of Elizabethan England.
• closely read some of the tragedies and one of the romances, written at the dawn of the subsequent Jacobean era.
• Understand the main threads of Shakespeare criticism, including modern and postmodern/postcolonial approaches.
• Understand the socio-historical context of the works.

3.   Reading Material

Required Materials (for both undergraduate and graduate students). These are all available on the NEO course site and/or via the links below.

Primary Works:

Shakespeare, William.

·        Henry IV, Part 1. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine, eds. Washington, D.C.: Folger Shakespeare Library, 1996-2000. URL: https://shakespeare.folger.edu/shakespeares-works/henry-iv-part-1/

·        Much Ado About Nothing. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine, eds. Washington, D.C.: Folger Shakespeare Library, 1996-2000. URL: https://shakespeare.folger.edu/shakespeares-works/much-ado-about-nothing/

·        Othello, The Moor of Venice. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine, eds. Washington, D.C.: Folger Shakespeare Library, 1996-2000. URL: https://shakespeare.folger.edu/shakespeares-works/othello/

·        Richard II. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine, eds. Washington, D.C.: Folger Shakespeare Library, 1996-2000. URL: https://shakespeare.folger.edu/shakespeares-works/richard-ii/

·        Sonnets. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine, eds. Washington, D.C.: Folger Shakespeare Library, 1996-2000. URL: https://shakespeare.folger.edu/shakespeares-works/shakespeares-sonnets/

·        The Tempest. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine, eds. Washington, D.C.: Folger Shakespeare Library, 1996-2000. URL: https://shakespeare.folger.edu/shakespeares-works/the-tempest/

·        The Tragedy of King Lear. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine, eds. Washington, D.C.: Folger Shakespeare Library, 1996-2000. URL: https://shakespeare.folger.edu/shakespeares-works/the-tempest/

                                                          

Articles:

·        Auden, W. H. “The Joker in the Pack.” In Brodhead, Richard and Mack, Maynard (eds.), y, Carol Thomas. Shakespeare's Middle Tragedies: A Collection of Critical Essays. New York: Prentice Hall, 1993, 75-90.

·        Frye, Northrop. “The Argument of Comedy.” In Grande, Troni Y., and Garry Sherbert, editors, Northrop Frye's Writings on Shakespeare and the Renaissance, vol. 28. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010, 3–13. Also in Lauter, Paul, Theories of Comedy. New York: Doubleday (Anchor Books), 1964, 450-60. URL: https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/12290257/northrop-frye-the-argument-of-comedy-facultad-de-humanidades

 

Recommended/Required Materials

Note: These readings are recommended for undergraduate students and required for graduate students. All materials are available on NEO.

·        Anderson, David. K. The Tragedy of Good Friday: Sacrificial Violence in King Lear. ELH 78:2 (Summer 2011), 259-86.

·        Cohen, Derek. “History and the Nation in ‘Richard II’ and ‘Henry IV’.” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 42:2 (Spring 2002), 293-315.

·        Dubrow, Heather. “Shakespeare's Undramatic Monologues: Toward a Reading of the Sonnets.” Shakespeare Quarterly, 32:1 (Spring 1981), 55-68.

·        Fineman, Joel.”Shakespeare's "Perjur'd Eye.” Representations 7 (Summer, 1984), 59-86.

·        Foakes, R.A. “Playhouses and Players.” In Braunmuller, A.R. and Hattaway, Michael, eds. The Cambridge Companion To English Renaissance Drama, 2^nd Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Chapter 1, 1-52.

·        Forker, Charles R. “Unstable Identity in Richard II,” Renascence 54:1 (2001), 3-21.

·        Kernan, Alvin B. “Othello: An Introduction.” In Harbage, Alfred (ed.), Shakespeare: The Tragedies. New York: Prentice Hall, 1965, 351-60.

·        Knight, G. Wilson. “King Lear and the Comedy of the Grotesque.” In Harbage (ed), Shakespeare: The Tragedies, 123-138. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1964.

·        Neely, Carol Thomas. “Women and Men in Othello: 'what should such a fool/Do with so good a woman?'” Shakespeare Studies 10 (1977), 133-58.

·        Sanchez, Melissa  E. “Seduction and Service in The Tempest. Studies in Philology 105:1 (Winter 2008), 50-82.

·        Straznicky, Marta. “Shakespeare and the Government of Comedy: Much Ado About Nothing.” Shakespeare Studies 22 (1994), 141-72.

 

4.   Teaching methodology

Classes will consist of lectures and discussions. Your participation grade is based on substantive participation – I do ask individual students about the readings in class, and my method is to select a piece of text and to ask an individual student, for starters at least, to work through that text with me. I also ask graduate students questions about assigned critical readings, of which there are approximately one per session (see above).

 

5.   Course Schedule

Please note: There will not be a first class meeting on Monday, Feb. 3. The first class meeting of the course will be Monday, Feb. 10. There will be a required make-up class on Friday, Feb. 28.

Also: Students will receive extra credit for attending showings of films in the Spring 2025 AAU Shakespeare Film Festival that are not part of the regular class schedule. The first of these, Kenneth Branagh’s “Much Ado About Nothing” (1993), will be Wednesday, Feb. 26 at 6:30 p.m. The second, Rupert Goold’s “Richard II” (2012. Season 1, Episode 1 of BBC series The Hollow Crown) will run on Wednesday, March 12 at 6:30 p.m. Richard Eyre’s “Henry IV Part 1” (Season 1, episode 2 of The Hollow Crown) will show on Monday, March 31 during class (and thus no extra credit). Olivia Parker’s “Othello” (1996) will run on Tuesday, April 22 at 6:30 p.m. Julie Taymor’s “The Tempest” (2010) will show on Monday, May 19 in class (no extra credit).All screenings will be in Room 2.07. Each film attendance (except for Henry IV, Part 1 and The Tempest) adds one point to your final participation grade.

Date	Class Agenda
Session 1 Feb. 10	Topic: Introduction: Shakespeare and His Culture; The Sonnet Tradition Description: Reading: (in-class) Sonnets 8, 15, 18, 20, 29 Assignments/deadlines:
Session 2 Feb. 17	Topic: Shakespeare's Sonnets (cont.), The Elizabethan/Jacobean  Stage Description: Reading (all): 1)   Sonnets 60, 62, 73, 76, 94, 111, 116, 138 In-Class Reading (all). You are not required to read this ahead of time, but you are responsible for excerpts covered in class: Foakes, R.A. “Playhouses and Players.” In Braunmuller, A.R. and Hattaway, Michael, eds. The Cambridge Companion To English Renaissance Drama, 2nd Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Chapter 1, 1-52. In NEO LESSONS, Lesson 2. Grad Reading: Heather Dubrow, “Shakespeare’s Undramatic Monologues: Toward A Reading of the Sonnets,” Shakespeare Quarterly 32(1): 55-68. Assignments/deadlines:
Session 3 Feb. 24	Topic: Comedy Description: Reading: Much Ado About Nothing, Acts. I-II Extra Credit: “Much Ado About Nothing” (Kenneth Branagh, dir., 1993), Feb. 26, 18:30.
Session 4 Feb. 28 Make-Up Class.	Topic: Comedy Description: Reading (all): 1)   Much Ado About Nothing, Acts III-V 2)   Northrop Frye, “The Argument of Comedy.”  Grad reading: Straznicky, Marta. “Shakespeare and the Government of Comedy: Much Ado About Nothing.” Assignments/deadlines:
Session 5 March 3	Topic: History Description: Reading: Richard II, Acts I-II Assignments/deadlines:
Session 6 March 10	Topic: History Description: Reading: Richard II, Acts III-V Grad Reading: Forker, Charles R. “Unstable Identity in Richard II,” Renascence 54:1 (2001), 3-21 Assignments/deadlines: Extra Credit: “Richard II” (Ruper Goold, dir., 2012), March 12, 18:30.
Session 7 March 17	Topic: History Description: Reading:. Henry IV, Part 1, Acts I-III Grad Reading: Cohen, Derek. “History and the Nation in ‘Richard II’ and ‘Henry IV’.” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 42:2 (Spring 2002), 293-315. Assignments/deadlines: Essay 1 due via Turnitin on NEO Sunday, March 23 at 11:59 p.m.
March 24	NO CLASS – MID-TERM BREAK
Session 8 March 31	Topic: History Description: Reading: Henry IV Part 1, Acts IV-V In Class: “Henry IV, Part 1” (Ruper Goold, dir., 2012).
Session 9 April 7	Topic: Tragedy Description: Reading: Othello, Acts I-II Grad Reading: Kernan, Alvin B. “Othello: An Introduction.” In Harbage, Alfred (ed.), Shakespeare: The Tragedies. New York: Prentice Hall, 1965, 351-60.
Session 10 April 14	Topic: Tragedy Description: Reading: Othello, Acts III-V Undergraduate and Graduate reading (all): Auden, W. H. “The Joker in the Pack.” In Brodhead, Richard and Mack, Maynard (eds.), Shakespeare's Middle Tragedies: A Collection of Critical Essays. New York: Prentice Hall, 1993, 75-90. Grad reading: Neely, Carol Thomas. “Women and Men in Othello: 'what should such a fool/Do with so good a woman?'” Shakespeare Studies 10 (1977), 133-58. Assignments/deadlines:
April 21	NO CLASS: EASTER MONDAY HOLIDAY Extra Credit: “Othello”(Olivia Parker dir., 1996), April 22, 18:30
Session 11 April 28	Topic: Tragedy Description: Reading: King Lear Acts I-III Assignments/deadlines:
Session 12 May 5	Topic: Tragedy Description: Reading: King Lear Acts. IV-V Undergrad and Grad Reading (all): Snyder, Susan. “King Lear: A Modern Perspective.” In The Tragedy of King Lear. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine, eds. Washington, D.C.: Folger Shakespeare Library, 1996-2000. Grad Reading: Anderson, David. K. The Tragedy of Good Friday: Sacrificial Violence in King Lear. ELH 78:2 (Summer 2011), 259-86. (Available through JSTOR) Assignments/deadlines:
Session 13 May 12	Topic: Romance Description: Reading: The Tempest Acts I-III
Session 14 May 19	Topic: Romance Description: Reading: The Tempest, Acts IV-V Grad reading: Sanchez, Melissa E. “Seduction and Service in The Tempest. Studies in Philology 105:1 (Winter 2008), 50-82. In-Class Viewing: “The Tempest” (2010). Assignments/deadlines: 1)   Final Exam posted at end of class and due on NEO Tuesday, May 20, 11:59 p.m. 2)   Essay 2 due via Turnitin on NEO Friday, May 23, 11:59 p.m.

6.   Course Requirements and Assessment (with estimated workloads)

Assignment	Workload (hours)	Weight in Final Grade	Evaluated Course Specific Learning Outcomes	Evaluated Institutional Learning Outcomes*
Attendance and Class Participation	42	25%	Commitment to class discussions and evidence of critical thinking about texts.	1,2,3
Essays	60	40%	Ability to apply on paper the same tactics of attentive, close reading for nuances of meaning that we will hone in class.	1,2
Reading Quizzes	18	10%	Ability to answer fact-based questions designed to test whether student has done the assigned reading.	1,2
Final Exam	30	25%	Ability in a time-limited setting to synthesize insights developed over the semester into one or more cohesive essays comparing several of the works studied.	1,2
TOTAL	150	100%

*1 = Critical Thinking; 2 = Effective Communication; 3 = Effective and Responsible Action

7.   Detailed description of the assignments

Assignment 1: Class Participation: This is where you will not only show that you are carefully reading the works assigned, but also where you will develop and practice the skills you will use in your essays (see above). I will ask each of you questions designed to elicit hard thinking about the text in front of you, at least until and if we develop a pattern of full participation in the class.

Assessment breakdown

Assessed area	Percentage
Critical thinking	50
Commitment to class discussion	50

Assignment 2: Essays: Each essay must be approximately 1600-2000 words (2000-3000 for graduate students), about one of Shakespeare's works or one or more sonnets studied during the period leading up to which the essay is due. Your first essay must be about one of the works studied in Sessions 1-8, and your second about one of the works studied in Sessions 10. For the first essay, I shall offer topic suggestions, though you are not required to follow my suggestions (however, if you choose to pursue your own topic, I would like to discuss it with you beforehand). For the second essay, you will come up with your own topic.

Assessment breakdown

Assessed area	Percentage
Factual Knowledge of text	20
Clear Writing and Correct Grammar, Punctuation, Syntax	20
Correct MLA Style	10
Incisive, persuasive textual analysis	50

Assignment 3: Reading Quizzes. I will give the reading quizzes on selected dates, unannounced. Each will be worth 1 percent of your final grade. You cannot make up missed reading quizzes because their nature does not allow for a make-up, as noted below in General Requirements and School Policies: the grade for these is 0.

Assessed area	Percentage
Proof that you have read the text	100

 

Assignment 4: Final Exam. The final exam will consist of short answers and a choice of essay questions designed to get you to synthesize the thinking you have developed all semester into cohesive literary analysis of texts.

Assessed area	Percentage
Factual knowledge of texts	25
Critical thinking displayed in essay answers	50
Clear writing and correct grammar/punctuation/syntax	25

8.   General Requirements and School Policies

General requirements

All coursework is governed by AAU’s academic rules. Students are expected to be familiar with the academic rules in the Academic Codex and Student Handbook and to maintain the highest standards of honesty and academic integrity in their work. Please see the AAU intranet for a summary of key policies regarding coursework.

 

Course-Specific Requirements

Because this course is all about your own close reading of literary texts, no AI-generated text is allowed in writing assignments. Any use of it will result in a failed grade for the assignment and could result in failing the entire course.

Attendance, i.e., presence in class in real-time, at AAU courses is default mandatory; however, it is not graded as such. (Grades may be impacted by missed assignments or lack of participation.) Still, students must attend at least two thirds of classes to complete the course. If they do not meet this condition and most of their absences are excused, they will be administratively withdrawn from the course. If they do not meet this condition and most of their absences are not excused, they will receive a grade of “FW” (Failure to Withdraw). Students may also be marked absent if they miss a significant part of a class (for example by arriving late or leaving early).

 

Prepared by: Andrew Giarelli

Date: Dec. 4, 2024

 

Approved by: Karen Grunow-Harsta

Date: 6.12.24