Shakespeare for Beginners and Experts, Part 4

About this course:

William Shakespeare is widely regarded as the greatest author of plays and poems in the English language. What is not widely recognized is that he wrote for two audiences: playgoers eager for diversion and entertainment, and the thoughtful "wiser sort" concerned with political, cultural, religious and social questions of the day. Shakespeare had a lot to say to both audiences which in good part accounts for his timeless popularity. In this course, we read five of his greatest plays, and discuss and understand them as well-informed lovers of the theater and poetry. But we also sift his writings for the provocative ideas–radical and rebellious ideas–that fired the imagination of the "wiser sort" in Shakespeare’s time and now. We read and discuss the following plays: Comedy of Errors, Cymbeline, Troilus and Cressida, Romeo and Juliet and Othello. This course will be recorded. Students will have access to videos for the duration of the course.