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In this course, A Midsummer Night’s Dream will be studied in depth. This is one of Shakespeare’s best-loved pieces. It brings together several love plots, quite a bit of magic, supernatural creatures, intriguing meta-textual elements, down-to-earth slapstick and much else besides – the sort of thing one can get seriously hooked on. A close reading of this play will give us ample opportunity to discuss both the text and its cultural, literary and historical contexts as well as its later reception. This seminar should make you more familiar not only with Shakespeare but also with the Elizabethan world of ideas.
You should have read at least by the beginning of the semester – so think, annotate, look things up if necessary and, above all, enjoy! Please use well-annotated critical editions only (i.e. either the edition done by Peter Holland in the Oxford World’s Classics/The Oxford Shakespeare series or an edition in the Arden Shakespeare series). |
