Module Information
Course Delivery
| Delivery Type | Delivery length / details |
|---|---|
| Seminars / Tutorials | 5 X 2 hour seminars |
Assessment
| Assessment Type | Assessment length / details | Proportion |
|---|---|---|
| Semester Assessment | 1 x 5000 word essay | 100% |
| Supplementary Assessment | Resubmit any failed elements and/or make good any missing elements. Where this involves re-submission of work, a new topic must be selected. Resubmission of essay | 100% |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this module, students should be able to:
1. Situate Shakespearean texts against a context of political issues in circulation in the 1590s and early 1600s
2. discuss Shakespeare and Renaissance politics from the viewpoint of a variety of critical approaches
3. demonstrate a sophisticated understanding of texts under review which is informed by an engagement with and understanding of relevant secondary reading
4. demonstrate an awareness of the broader cultural and theoretical issues raised by the module such as the connections between gender and power, the intersections between domestic and foreign policy, the use of allegory in texts.
Aims
1. to introduce students to political interpretations of Shakespeare's plays;
2. to explore political issues current in the 1590s and early 1600s;
3. to evaluate recent critical approaches to and studies of Shakespeare's plays;
4. to explore and interrogate the extent to which Shakespeare's plays were critical or supportive of political figures and institutions.
Brief description
This module examines Shakespeare's drama as political events and interventions. It explores Shakespeare's plays in relation to fundamental political issues of the 1590s and early 1600s. It focuses on questions of succession and political legitimacy posed in Shakespeare's plays dating to the last years of Elizabeth I's reign. The module considers the attitude to James I revealed in Shakespeare's plays written after the accession of the Scottish to his English kingdom. It explores the extent to which the relatively successful transition between Tudor and Stuart rule resulted in a focus on the political institutions that govern the nation in Shakespeare's later plays examining how the country was governed and by whom.
Content
2. Kingship and legitimacy in The Scottish Play: Macbeth (performed 1605-6)
3. Kingship and the Matter of Britain: King Lear (performed 1605-6)
4. The state, the King and the court: Measure for Measure (performed 1604)
5. Race, gender and the Union in the late plays: Cymbeline (c1609)
Module Skills
| Skills Type | Skills details |
|---|---|
| Application of Number | N/A |
| Communication | YES - through seminar presentations and group discussion |
| Improving own Learning and Performance | YES - through independent reading/ research. |
| Information Technology | YES - through literature searches and information retrieval; by the use of online resources |
| Personal Development and Career planning | YES - through transferable communication and research skills |
| Problem solving | YES - by reading texts against context; by critical evaluation of secondary material; by the ability to explore ideas represented in texts; by the ability to develop and sustain a line of argument. |
| Research skills | YES - by critical evaluation of secondary material; by bibliographic searches for relevant material; by relating literary texts to historical contexts; by synthesizing information in an extended evaluative argument. |
| Subject Specific Skills | Detailed critical analysis of literary texts and evaluation of broad intellectual concepts. |
| Team work | YES - through group presentations |
Reading List
Harris, Jonathan Gil (Jan. 2009) Untimely Matter in the Time of Shakespeare University of Pennsylvania Press Primo search Perry, Curtis (May 2009) Shakespeare and the Middle Ages Oxford University Press Primo search
Notes
This module is at CQFW Level 7