ENGL 2215

This course explores some of the works of William Shakespeare written or performed before 1600. Plays to be studied may include Richard III, Henry IV Parts I and II, Henry V, Titus Andronicus, The Taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Love's Labour's Lost, The Merchant of Venice, Romeo and Juliet, Much Ado about Nothing and Hamlet; poetry may include Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece and some of the sonnets. We will attend to how Shakespeare learned his craft through experimentation and cross-fertilization in the larger context of the rhetorical and theatrical culture of sixteenth-century London.