Module Identifier | EN33020 | |||||||||||
Module Title | SHAKESPEARE AND JONSON | |||||||||||
Academic Year | 2003/2004 | |||||||||||
Co-ordinator | Mr Michael J Smith | |||||||||||
Semester | Available semesters 1 and 2 | |||||||||||
Course delivery | Seminars / Tutorials | 20 Hours Seminar. (10 x 2 hr seminar/workshops) | ||||||||||
Assessment |
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The module begins by setting Shakespeare's festive comedy of courtship and marriage, A Midsummer Night's Dream, alongside Jonson's formally innovative 'humours' comedy, Every Man In His Humour: the one set in a semi-mythical Athenian court (and wood) and dealing in love and magic, the other in a vividly realised early seventeenth-century London, populated by an eccentric assortment of fantasists and misfits, and concerned with the satiric exposure of social pretensions. In succeeding weeks we will look at the impact of humours comedy on Shakespearean romance (Twelfth Night), and compare and contrast the darkening cityscapes of Volpone, Jonson's Venetian fable of consumption, and Timon of Athens, Shakespeare's savage satire on material excess. Study of Jonson's gender-bending Epicoene and Shakespeare's Measure for Measure will enable us to explore issues of sexuality and identity, as they are shaped by the experience of the early modern city. Finally, a detailed investigation of Jonson's great and self-reflexive carnivalesque comedy, Bartholomew Fair, will prompt us to a retrospective overview of themes and trends within the plays discussed.
1. Introduction to Jonson and Shakespeare (with reference to their writing about the theatre)
2-4. Comedy, Festivity and Humours: Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream; Jonson Every Man in his Humour; Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
5-6. Fantasies of Consumption: Jonson, Volpone; Shakespeare, Timon of Athens
7-8. Sex and the City: Jonson, Epicoene; Shakespeare, Measure for Measure
9-10. The Limits of Carnival: Jonson, Bartholomew Fair
Texts
A collected edition of Shakespeare would suffice, but individual copies of the New Cambridge, Oxford or New Arden editions would be much better. For Jonson, you will need a copy of Jonson, Five Plays, ed, G A Wilkes (World's Classics). This contains Every Man in his Humour, Volpone and Bartholomew Fair. You will also ened to acquire an edition of Jonson's Epicoene (New Mermaid, ed. R V Holdsworth recommended). Detailed bibliographies of secondary reading will be distributed at the beginning of the module. If you would like to do some secondary reading in advance, the following are strongly recommended (indeed you should think seriously about acquiring one or both):
Blackwell Companion to Shakespeare, ed David Scott Kastan (1999)
Cambridge Companion to Ben Jonson, ed Richard Harp and Stanley Stewart (2000)
This module is at CQFW Level 6