MALS ZGLS 62701                 Prof. Robert Christopher/AIS

T 6:00-8:30                     Office: B-231 684-7418

Spring 2004                     E: rchristo@ramapo.edu

 

 

                    Shakespeare's Strangers

 

Seminar Description: The seminar's title derives from Leslie Fiedler's influential work, The Stranger in Shakespeare (1972), on the outsider/alien in Shakespeare. Increasing attention has been given to the proposition that when we regard Shakespeare's career within the cultural and economic context of London, of an England eager for expansion and empire, we can observe how he and his contemporaries shared an interest in the nature and identity of the "other." These strangers manifest themselves to Shakespeare and his contemporaries either through direct contact, translated story, or the narratives of voyagers. These strangers are to appear as people of color, new world savages, non-believers or exotics of antiquity or the faraway. They are peoples marked by differences of belief, origin, race or gender. Among the issues we will address, the following will be highlighted:

 

--What can we learn from Shakespeare's plays about the representation of the other? To what extent did Shakespeare reflect the cultural assumptions and understandings about the other in an era of increasing world-wide knowledge and economic exploration and expansion; and

 

--What can we learn from the history of theatrical representations of the other from Shakespeare's day to our own. How do these interpretive variations in the representation of the other reflect continuing, revised or emergent perceptions of others as cultural outsiders. The Seminar Texts are:

 

Antony & Cleopatra, ed. J. Wilders (Arden Shakespeare), 1995

Merchant of Venice, ed. J. Halio (World's Classics), 1993

Othello, ed. E. Honigmann (Arden Shakespeare), 1996

Taming of the Shrew, ed. F. Dolan (Bedford), 1996

Tempest, ed. S. Orgel (Oxford Classics), 1998

Titus Andronicus, ed. J. Bate (Arden Shakespeare), 1995

 

Editions of these plays are on order at the bookstore. They are not only well-edited texts, but you will also be expected to read the accompanying critical introductions and material in these ordered editions so it is important they you acquire these texts.

 

Seminar expectations:

 

--Attendance at all seminar meetings is expected as are active contributions to the discussion and interpretation of our readings. Students absent for two consecutive meetings must confer with me.

 

--Each student will lead one or more discussions on an assigned secondary reading or critical introduction.

 

--Each student will submit a Critical Intent paper in which the topic of her or his final critical seminar paper is presented with an annotated bibliography. This Intent paper is due March 29.

 

--Each student will make to the seminar a presentation of his or her final critical paper. The paper itself will be submitted no later than May 18.

 

Course Calendar

 

2/3       Organizational meeting

 

2/10      Read The Merchant of Venice and Jay Halio's introduction to the text, pp. 1-84.

 

2/17      Continuation of Merchant of Venice and critical discussion of selections from James Shapiro's Shakespeare and the Jews (1996), 1-12, 113-130, 180-89.

 

2/24      Read Taming of the Shrew and Frances Dolan's introduction to the text, 1-38, and critical discussion of chapter 2, "Marriage" 160-84 & 193-99.

 

3/2       Continuation of The Taming of the Shrew and critical discussion of chapter 3, "The Household"  200-06; 218-25; and chapter 4, "Shrews"  244-46; 304-10; 312-16.

 

3/9       Read Antony & Cleopatra and John Wilder's introduction to the text, 1-84, and critical discussion of Lucy Hughes-Hallet, "Introduction to Cleopatra: Histories, Dreams and Distortions (1990), 1-6.

 

3/16      Continuation of Antony & Cleopatra and critical discussion of Jack D'Amico "Antony and Cleopatra," from The Moor in Renaissance Drama (1991), 147-61; and Carol Cook "The Fatal Cleopatra," from Shakespearean Tragedy and Gender, ed. Shirley Nelson Garner & Madelon Sprengnether (1996), 241-67.

 

3/23      Spring Recess