Shakespeare's Histories: Critical Approaches
| Code | School | Level | Credits | Semesters |
| ENGL1012 | English | 1 | 10 | Autumn UK |
- Code
- ENGL1012
- School
- English
- Level
- 1
- Credits
- 10
- Semesters
- Autumn UK
Summary
This module offers an introduction to Shakespeare through a close focus on one particular genre of drama – the history play – which was hugely popular in England’s commercial playhouses in the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth centuries. Looking in detail at a sequence of four plays – Richard II, 1 Henry IV, 2 Henry IV and Henry V – the module will explore the structure, form and content of Shakespeare’s histories, considering their interest in national and regional identities, their interest in kingship, power and authority, and their exploration of sexual politics, war and identity.
Working across several areas of research in the School of English, the module explores how the plays reflected and contested the ideologies of their own moment. Through consideration of the plays’ history of adaptation and performance on stage and screen, the module also considers how the plays have been repeatedly remade to speak to the concerns of later eras and cultures up to the present day.
Target Students
Optional for all first-year SH English students. Not available to JH students or second- and final-year SH English students. Optional for all other students on a subsidiary basis.
Classes
- One 1-hour-30-minute lecture each week for 11 weeks
Assessment
- 100% Coursework 1: 1500 words
Assessed by end of autumn semester
Educational Aims
This module aims to:introduce the genre of early modern history plays and a variety of critical approaches to their study,develop skills of literary analysis through close reading and contextual understanding,enable students to demonstrate critical understanding and interpretation of performance choices.Learning Outcomes
Knowledge and understanding
- A1: of a variety of critical approaches to the study of early modern history plays
- A2: of the literary, cultural and historical contexts of Shakespeare's history plays
- A4: of the issues of performance and analysis specific to Shakespeare’s histories
- A5: of the interaction of genre and content in the literary texts
- Intellectual skills
- B1: engage in close and logical analysis of literary and performance texts
- B2: develop independent arguments while giving due weight to the arguments of others
- B3: understand complex ideas and apply them to specific questions
- Professional practical skills
- C1: articulate knowledge and understanding of literary and theoretical concepts appropriate to the study of Shakespeare's histories
- C2: analyse texts with an anwarene4ss of how circumstances of authorship, textual production and convention affect what they communicate
- C3: write accurately and grammatically, and present written material using conventions appropriate to literary and drams work including bibliographies
- C4: construct and communicate analysis of literary and performance texts
- Transferable (key) skills
- D2: the ability to communicate effectively in writing
- D5: the ability to work with a variety of written and eletronic resources and present the results in a clear and accurate fashion