The main course objectives are to provide students with an enhanced understanding of Shakespeare’s dramatic and characterization techniques in the tragedies, in the context of their original production and later interpretations.
By the conclusion of the course students will be able to:
1. Critically analyse and interpret the verbal, generic, structural, and dramatic qualities of Shakespeare’s tragedies.
2. Exhibit an enhanced understanding of Shakespeare’s place in British and World literature and culture.
3. Effectively utilize contemporary criticism, original reception, text, and history as ways of providing a context for understanding the plays.
4. Relate Shakespeare’s plays to the historical, cultural, social, literary, and creative contexts in which they were/are produced and re-produced.