English 663: Why Shakespeare?
Professor Jonathan Burton

In this section of English 663 we will take up the questions that simultaneously fuel and plague Shakespeare Studies: What (if anything) makes Shakespeare great? And why do we still read and perform his works? In the past, answers to these questions have offered at least as many insights into the critics and cultures that offered them as they have into Shakespearean drama. Thus we will begin from an understanding of how arguments regarding Shakespeare's "universal" genius or his "invention of the human" may be yoked to various social and political agendas. Shuttling between early modern culture and our own, we will consider how Shakespeare's plays functioned in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as well as how they may function in alternative ways in the twenty-first century.

Nine weeks of our class will be devoted to reading some of Shakespeare's best known plays. Throughout this time, we will attend to questions of gender, genre, sexuality, performance, and postcoloniality. In the remaining sessions, we will concentrate on recent criticism that attempts to "make sense" of Shakespeare's place in early modern culture and in contemporary cu]ture. ~

Reading List
Richard lll
A Midsummer Night's Dream
The Taming of the Shrew Hamlet
As You Like It Twelfth Night
A Winter's Tale Cymbeline
Antony and Cleopatra Othello
The Tempest Measure for Measure

Catherine Belsey, Shakespeare & the Loss of Eden
David Bevington, Shakespeare
Germaine Greer, Shakespeare: A Very Short lntroduction
Ania Loomba and Martin Orkin, eds., Postcolonial Shakespeares
Michael Taylor, Shakespeare Criticism in the Twentieth Century

Assignments and Grading:
In lieu of a traditional seminar paper, each student will complete a portfolio of journal-worthy reviews of roughly 1200 words each over the course of the term. Reviews of Belsey, Taylor, Loomba & Orkin, and Bevington must be completed by the assigned date. These four, plus a fifth also dealing with a work of recent Shakespeare criticism and chosen by the student in conjunction with the professor, will comprise the bulk of a final portfolio. Portfolios will also include a 6-8 page analytical preface discussing trends in contemporary Shakespeare criticism. In addition, each student will make a 10-minute presentation of either secondary- or college-level pedagogy for a given play. Presentations should take the class through a set of notes and/or supplementary materials designed for teaching a particular play or scene.

Class Participation: 15%
Pedagogy Assignment 15%
Review Portfolio: 70%

January
13 Introduction
20 Norton Shakespeare 1-74, Richard III and Greer
27 Midsummer (and Shrew)

February
3 Hamlet
10 As You Like It (and Twelfth Night)
17 A Winter's Tale (and Cymbeline)
24 Belsey

March
2 Antony and Cleopatra
9 Othello (and Merchant)
23 Taylor
30 Tempest

April
6 Loomba and Orkin 5.
13 Measure for Measure
20 Bevington
27 Conferencing

Class Environment and Policies
This course will be run as a seminar in order to allow for extensive class discussion. There will be 10-15 minute periods when I will not speak at all. This is to assure that we address your ideas as much as mine. Students are expected to engage with each other's ideas in a respectful but still critical manner. Your goal should not be to prove your peers wrong; rather you are encouraged to help one another to clarify and develop your positions. No one is expected to come to class with fully formed analyses, just ideas and a willingness to share them. No more than one absence will be tolerated, each additional absence will result in a grade reduction.

Recommended Works of Shakespeare Criticism for Review:
Stephen Bretzius, Shakespeare in Theory: The Postmodern Academy and the Early Modern Theater
Michael Bristol, Big Time Shakespeare
Douglas Bruster, Shakespeare and the Question of Culture
Dympua Callaghan, Shakespeare without Women
Lawrence Danson, Shakespeare's Dramatic Genres
Richard Foulkes, Performing Shakespeare in the Age of Empire
Penny Gay, As She Iikes It: Shakespeare 's Unruly Women (Gender and Performance)
Jean Howard and Scott Cutler Shershow, Marxist Shakespeares
David Scott Kastan, Shakespeare after Theory
Ania Loomba, Shakespeare, Race and Colonialism
Stephen Orgel, Impersonations: The Performance of Gender in Shakespeare 's England
Bryan Reynolds, Performing Transversally: Reimagining Shakespeare and the Critical Future
Bruce Smith, Shakespeare and Masculinity