Cross listed with MDVL_REN 4105/7105-03

       In this course we will read a selection of comedies and histories from Shakespeare's career.                 

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                        He that commends me to mine own content

                        Commends me to the thing I cannot get. 

                        I to the world am like a drop of water

                        That in the ocean seeks another drop, 

                        Who, falling there to find his fellow forth,

                        Unseen, inquisitive, confounds himself.

                        So I, to find a mother and a brother, 

                        In quest of them unhappy, lose myself.

                                                (Antipholus,  The Comedy of Errors, I.ii.33-40.)

                        Why, I can smile, and murder whiles I smile,

                        And cry ‘Content!’ to that which grieves my heart, 

                        And wet my cheeks with artificial tears, 

                        And frame my face to all occasions. 

                        I’ll drown more sailors than the mermaid shall; 

                        I’ll slay more gazers than the basilisk; 

                        I’ll play the orator as well as Nestor, 

                        Deceive more slyly than Ulysses could, 

                        And, like a Sinon, take another Troy. 

                        I can add colours to the chameleon, 

                       Change shapes with Proteus for advantages, 

                       And set the murderous Machiavel to school. 

                       Can I do this, and cannot get a crown? 

                       Tut, were it farther off, I’ll pluck it down. 

                                                (Richard, Henry the Sixth, part three, III.ii.182-195.)

In these two passages, speakers defines themselves in terms of changing forms—a lone drop of water swallowed by an ocean, and a political actor doing whatever it takes to get the power.  The “I” struggles mightily, and eventually has to let go of an old and original self in order to find a new role. The goal is a new self, and the path includes epic barriers. 

Shakespeare’s histories and comedies both tell stories of change, with what at first looks like a very different focus: history plays are much more about the “public” realm, and  comedies show us individuals and couples remaking themselves in their so-called “private” lives.  But one of our projects will be looking at connections between those two parts of life, then and now.  In particular, we will focus on the way plays in each genre show how challenging change is, and how the attempt to imagine a new way of life, in private or in public, draws out all the sources of conflict in a culture, and puts both personal and group identity under threat.  In order to gain either political power or love, people play roles, not just “being themselves” but being a person they imagine will succeed.  All does seem to be fair in love and politics, where things collide in multiple ways.  One way to consider both art and culture is to look at the collisions, which we will be doing.   

Shakespeare’s histories are all about power—who gets to rule, what makes for a successful ruler or soldier, and who gets to be part of the sharing of power. We will read three plays—Richard III, Henry IV part 1, and Henry V—and we will especially consider what goes into consolidating power.  You might at first find this genre off-putting, because of the sometimes dizzying concentration of names and historical details, but the poetry and thinking in the plays draw our attention to human passions that are still with us today, and to the fabrications and strategies that are involved in power politics.  The people leading a country, you may have noticed, often do pretty dramatic things.  Shakespeare seems to emphasize that when people fight over politics, they draw on questions of group identity—of who is one of “us,” and of who is one of “them.” History for Shakespeare is often inseparable from tragedy, showing the rise and fall of ambitious people and people who just happen to get caught up in the politics. The plays also raise questions about how we can use the past: when is the past a proof of the need for obedience, and when is it a spur to skepticism, or even to revolution?  How do politicians rely on memories, both their own memories and the cultural memories people share?  When do leaders want us to forget?  Is memory conservative?  Can forgetting be creative? 

Comedy, a much more familiar genre, one with clear successors in modern drama and film, had a long tradition before Shakespeare both in Renaissance England and in the classical world, and it also combines the public and the private realms. Shakespeare’s contributions to the tradition of comedy involve certain patterns and obsessions, as well as a tremendous poetic speaking style.  Here we will read four plays: A Comedy of Errors, The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado About Nothing, and Twelfth Night.  All four of these plays portray rough and painful journeys toward love, and all have elements that have been called “festive” as well as others that have been described as “dark.”  We will consider that mixture, as well as the mixture of the public and private. Shakespeare’s comedy seems to depend upon trauma or the threat of trauma, and how those things hover around or behind so many human passions.  We will pay especial attention to issues of identity and the pressures on it, and the range of conflicts involved in romantic and sexual relations.

Some previous experience with Shakespeare’s writing or other writing from the Renaissance will definitely help, but even more important is a willingness to explore in the culture and language of a very distant time period. Attention to the history of the period, and how it appears in the plays, will be a significant part of our work.  But the end point of all that cultural knowledge is to help us feel and enjoy the dramatic art, and to see the centrality of imagination, change, and identity in Shakespeare’s public and private worlds and in our own.