|
Fall
2015 Hamlet This
course will give students the opportunity to do a semester long study
of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedy, perhaps the greatest play ever
written. First, we will analyze how Hamlet fits
into the Elizabethan world of ideas and then into Shakespeare’s
developing career as a working playwright. We will do a line
by line close reading of the play, and students will do exercises
involving verse scansion, paraphrase, spot passage identification and
memorization of key speeches. We will familiarize ourselves with the
sources of Hamlet and consider how
Shakespeare revised them in forging a new aesthetic for his brand new
playhouse, the Globe. We will write essays about Shakespeare’s purpose
informed by an overview of the most famous critical interpretations of
the play. (Coleridge, Carlyle, Schlegel, Hazlitt, Bradley, and Jones).
We will study the performance history of the play and observe how
interpretations of the role have been influenced by the history of
ideas. Finally, we will put scenes from the play on their feet and
perform them for friends and family. |