Gwybodaeth Modiwlau
Module Identifier
EN36220
Module Title
Renaissance Tragedies of Rome:Marlowe,Shakespeare and Others
Academic Year
2013/2014
Co-ordinator
Semester
Intended for use in future years
Course Delivery
| Delivery Type | Delivery length / details |
|---|---|
| Seminars / Tutorials | 20 Hours. 10 x 2 hour workshop/seminars |
Assessment
| Assessment Type | Assessment length / details | Proportion |
|---|---|---|
| Semester Assessment | 1 essay (2,500 words) plus oral presentation Continuous Assessment: | 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. |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this module students should typically be able to:
1. demonstrate that they have acquired a knowledge and understanding of the primary texts on the module and a critical awareness of the broader issues raised by the module;
2. discuss the texts and their various contexts coherently;
3. write about them in a well-structured and well-argued way.
Aims
This module aims:
1. to broaden the students' knowledge of early-modern drama, especially tragedy;
2. to encourage them to read early-modern plays in context and consider their political and ideological significance;
3. by focussing on episodes drawn from the history of ancient Rome, to encourage students to reconstruct the way in which history was used to comment on the present;
4. to make students sensitive to strategies of evasion and allegory used by authors working in conditions of censorship and heavy government control.
1. to broaden the students' knowledge of early-modern drama, especially tragedy;
2. to encourage them to read early-modern plays in context and consider their political and ideological significance;
3. by focussing on episodes drawn from the history of ancient Rome, to encourage students to reconstruct the way in which history was used to comment on the present;
4. to make students sensitive to strategies of evasion and allegory used by authors working in conditions of censorship and heavy government control.
Brief description
What kinds of tragedies were written in the English Renaissance? Did they focus on the individual or the state? Men or women? Were they action-packed or did they rely predominantly on verbal exchanges? How did the form evolve in the Elizabethan, Jacobean, and Caroline periods?
Among the themes and issues that will arise are: the status of the tragic hero or heroine ; the language and style of tragedy; the role of dramatic dialogue and soliloquies; the function of space; tragedy in performance; the impact of tragedy on the audience.
Yet we shall not limit ourselves to discussing tragedy as a dramatic genre. In the early modern era the theatre was the most powerful cultural institution that made possible dissemination and critique of assumptions about politics, religion, and society. We shall ask how tragedy shaped those assumptions. We shall explore the political functions of tragic drama in changing historical contexts. Since all texts on this module are set in ancient Rome, we shall be able to trace how Renaissance writers confronted pressing contemporary concerns about national identity and England's emergent status as a colonial power by refracting them through the classical past. We shall also examine the representation of gender, race, and class in tragedy, and consider the ideology of the tragic form.
Among the themes and issues that will arise are: the status of the tragic hero or heroine ; the language and style of tragedy; the role of dramatic dialogue and soliloquies; the function of space; tragedy in performance; the impact of tragedy on the audience.
Yet we shall not limit ourselves to discussing tragedy as a dramatic genre. In the early modern era the theatre was the most powerful cultural institution that made possible dissemination and critique of assumptions about politics, religion, and society. We shall ask how tragedy shaped those assumptions. We shall explore the political functions of tragic drama in changing historical contexts. Since all texts on this module are set in ancient Rome, we shall be able to trace how Renaissance writers confronted pressing contemporary concerns about national identity and England's emergent status as a colonial power by refracting them through the classical past. We shall also examine the representation of gender, race, and class in tragedy, and consider the ideology of the tragic form.
Content
_Programme:
_1. Introductory: Ideas of Tragedy, Ancient and Modern
_2. Epic, Tragedy, Satire: Founding Myths and Racial Others
Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Nashe, Dido, Queen of Carthage (1586)
_3-5. Tragedy, Violence and Violation
William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus (1593); John Webster and Thomas Heywood, Appius and Virginia (1624)
_6-8. Tragedy, Sacrifice and the State
William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar (1599); Ben Jonson, Sejanus his Fall (c. 1603); Philip Massinger, The Roman Actor (1626)
_9-10. The World as a Tragic Stage
William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra (1607)
_1. Introductory: Ideas of Tragedy, Ancient and Modern
_2. Epic, Tragedy, Satire: Founding Myths and Racial Others
Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Nashe, Dido, Queen of Carthage (1586)
_3-5. Tragedy, Violence and Violation
William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus (1593); John Webster and Thomas Heywood, Appius and Virginia (1624)
_6-8. Tragedy, Sacrifice and the State
William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar (1599); Ben Jonson, Sejanus his Fall (c. 1603); Philip Massinger, The Roman Actor (1626)
_9-10. The World as a Tragic Stage
William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra (1607)
Notes
This module is at CQFW Level 6