Brief description
The rewriting and reputation of Shakespeare in the Restoration and eighteenth century will be explored. At the start of the period Shakespeare was considered a minor and obsolete writer - by its end he had become, in Michael Dobson's words, 'the national poet'. Yet the Shakespeare known to the 18th century is not the Shakespeare known to us .His plays were extensively adapted, in versions which proved vastly and lastingly popular, to meet the commerical, political, and aesthetic demands of the time. A series of Shakespeare's plays will be compared with their adaptations and we shall also be reading contemporary critical commentaries on Shakespeare. We shall ask how changes of literary value reflect the emergence of new social and cultural attitudes. Among the themes that will arise are: the uses of theatrical spectacle, music, and song; shifting concepts of tragedy and comedy; representations of gender and cultural difference; the contribution of drama both to political propoganda and to the formation of national identity.

Outline syllabus

• Introduction: Constructing the Bard:- Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet. FILM: Shakespeare in Love
• From the Sublime to the Ridiculous?: Restoration Tempest:- Shakespeare, The Tempest; Dryden and Davenant, The Tempest, or The Enchanted Island . FILM: Prospero's Books
• Elsinore, Decentred:- Shakespeare, Hamlet; Tom Stoppard, Rozencrantz and Guildernstern are Dead. FILM: Rozencrantz and Guildernstern are Dead
• Shakespeare for the Twenty-First Century:- Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus; FILM: Titus