ENGL 215 - Pre-modern Drama: Text and Performance before 1800

Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)

Study of selected dramatic texts and their embodiment both on the page and the stage. Authors, critical and theoretical approaches, dramatic genres, historical coverage, and themes may vary from year to year.

Topic for 2021/22b: “Vile, Outrageous Crimes.” Adultery, bestiality, blasphemy, cannibalism, cozenage, dismemberment, feigned lunacy and feigned virginity, filicide and fratricide, harlotry, incest, larceny, murder, mutilation, necromancy, necrophilia, pedophilia, rape, robbery, sedition, sodomy, thievery, and treason are only a few of those “most foul, strange, and unnatural” acts of transgression that we explore in selected plays created between the 1590s and the 1670s. In addition to Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus and Richard III, we discuss plays by Marlowe, Jonson, Middleton, Rowley, Webster, Ford, and Wycherley. We also read selected theoretical texts by René Girard, Michel Foucault, and others. In addition to discussing various acts of transgression and violence, we place a great emphasis on the performative aspects of our plays. Zoltán Márkus.

This course satisfies one of the two pre-1800 requirements for the English major.

Two 75-minute periods.

Course Format: CLS