Catalog Description

Prerequisite: Eligibility for ENGL 1A
Hours: 54 lecture
Description: Reading and discussion of selected plays of Shakespeare; includes discussion of the historical context and contemporary critical views. (CSU, UC)

Course Student Learning Outcomes

  • CSLO #1: Demonstrate appropriate logical and analytic strategies to interpret Shakespeare's plays.
  • CSLO #2: Construct focused, developed and organized essays that analyze Shakespeare's plays.
  • CSLO #3: Locate, evaluate, and utilize secondary sources related to the study of Shakespeare's works.
  • CSLO #4: Compare/contrast themes among Shakespeare's plays of the same and different genres.
  • CSLO #5: Analyze the historical contexts that influence Shakespeare's writing.

Effective Term

Fall 2017

Course Type

Credit - Degree-applicable

Contact Hours

54

Outside of Class Hours

108

Total Student Learning Hours

162

Course Objectives

1. Identify themes specific to Shakespeare's plays.
2. Compare and contrast those themes among plays of the same and different genres (comedy, tragedy, history, romance).
3. Identify and describe the various genres of Shakespeare's plays.
4. Compare and contrast themes within a single genre of Shakespeare's plays.
5. Analyze single plays (for theme, character, etc.).
6. Describe some of the historical contexts that influence Shakespeare's writing.

General Education Information

  • Approved College Associate Degree GE Applicability
    • AA/AS - Literature & Language
  • CSU GE Applicability (Recommended-requires CSU approval)
    • CSUGE - C2 Humanities
  • Cal-GETC Applicability (Recommended - Requires External Approval)
    • IGETC Applicability (Recommended-requires CSU/UC approval)
      • IGETC - 3B Humanities

    Articulation Information

    • CSU Transferable
    • UC Transferable

    Methods of Evaluation

    • Classroom Discussions
      • Example: 1) Each group will discuss one of the following issues that relates to the play King Lear and present its findings to the rest of the class. Make sure that you provide specific examples to substantiate your points and provide a comprehensive analysis of the issue: a) Discuss how King Lear exhibits the parallel tragedies of two families whose fates are closely linked. b) Discuss how blindness, sight and insight are paradoxically portrayed in the play. c) Discuss how disguise, illusion and reality are paradoxically portrayed in the play. d) Discuss how the play involves paradoxical meanings of “natural” and “unnatural as they apply to human relationships and behavior. e) Discuss how the language of King Lear is wide ranging and complex. Explain how different characters use different forms of language. 2)In this group activity, each group should develop a dramatic representation of Act I. Your version must not include witches, battles, and kings and aristocrats, but it must convey all of the ideas and most significant action of each of the seven scenes. Your play should also be set in a different time. When acted out your play should be no longer than five minutes in length. Include all group members in the presentation. You may reduce the number of characters in the action so as to simplify your version of the play.
    • Essay Examinations
      • Example: 1) Midterm question: Please respond to 2 of the 3 passages below. Tell me what play each is from, who is speaking, and how the passage is thematically important to the play as a whole. Paragraph length answers should be comprehensive and well developed. Rubric Grading. A) Thus answer I in name of [a character], But hear these ill news with the ears of [another character]. Tis certain so, the prince woos for himself. Friendship is constant is all other things Save in the office and affairs of love; Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues . . . . This is an accident of hourly proof Which I mistrusted not. B) I know you all, and will a while uphold The unyok’d humor of your idleness, Yet herein will I imitate the sun Who doth permit the base contagious clouds To smother up his beauty from the world, That when he please again to be himself, Being wanted, he may be more wond’red at By breaking through the foul and ugly mists Of vapors that did seem to strangle him. C) [character1] Nay, but hear me. Pardon this fault, and by my soul I swear I never more will break an oath with thee. [character 2] I once did lend my body for his wealth, Which but for him that had your husband’s ring Had quite miscarried. I dare be bound again, My soul upon the forfeit, that your lord Will never more break faith advisedly. 2) (Final exam question) You have one hour to respond to the following question. Focus on having a clear thesis, well-developed paragraphs and specific examples from the text: The Merchant of Venice, Hamlet, Twelfth Night, and The Tempest all involve themes of revenge. Do they present a consistent vision of what it means to want or get revenge? Does this vision develop over the years? Or is there any pattern at all? Use all of the plays to support your thesis.
    • Objective Examinations
      • Example: Sample questions during objective exams may include examples such as the following: 1) Describe and show how the following characters died in Act V. Use one appropriate quote for each to show how each death occurred. Regan— Goneril— Edmund— Cordelia— King Lear— 2) List and briefly describe all the deaths directly brought about by the Macbeths in the play.
    • Reports
      • Example: 1) After discussing any two of the following issues in class, each group will present their findings to the rest of the class in a 10 minute presentation. Make sure each group member takes part in the presentation of the two issues. Rubric Grading. a) Are Macbeth and Lady Macbeth overly ambitious or narcissistic? b) Describe the nature of the relationship between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. c) In some productions of the play, Lady Macbeth plays one of the three witches or a fourth or even a single witch that tempts Macbeth. What merit do you see in this characterization? d) What do you believe to be the fatal flaws of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth? e) It has been argued that Macbeth “is human in his deliberations, inhumane in his actions.” Discuss. f) To what degree does the play simply exhibit the age old prejudice that powerful women are often viewed as unnatural and evil? g) The meaning of the term “shard-borne” (carried aloft on wings) in the following quote (3.2.42) is the subject of some controversy partly because some early versions of the play use “shard-born” (born in dung). Which interpretation do you favor? “The shard-borne beetle, with his drowsie hums/Hath rung night’s yawning Peale…” h) Despite the blood and gore (there are more references to blood than in any other Shakespeare play) and the mainly depressing nature of the play, the Porter scene (2.3.1-40 is considered to be humorous. Discuss why it is comedic. 2) Each group should address one of the following sections that includes the character Falstaff from Henry the IV Part I and present its findings in a 10 minute report to the rest of the class: -- Examine the longer set of lines making sure you understand what’s going on in that section and practice reading the lines as your group will be reading these lines out in the presentation. In the presentation each group should provide a brief overview of what’s going on in the lines before reading them out. --Next, you should paraphrase in modern English (rewrite in your own words in roughly the same number of words) the shorter section of lines. Do this without referring to any sources that will aid you in the task. Make sure you introduce the shorter section of lines and provide some background to it before providing your paraphrase. These will then be read out by the group members during the presentation. Choose one of the following two sets of lines: 1) 2.2.1-108 2.2.10-29 2) 2.4.112-222 2.4.251-277 3) 3.3.1-104 3.3.29-51 4) 4.2.1-80 4.2.11-47 5) 5.4.75-162 5.4.111-128

    Repeatable

    No

    Methods of Instruction

    • Lecture/Discussion
    • Distance Learning

    Lecture:

    1. Using a PowerPoint presentation, the instructor will lecture on Shakespeare's use of stagecraft as it relates to the following areas: i) The importance of rapid exposition. --Provides all necessary information for audience to understand play. --Brief but exciting. ii) How Shakespeare lets us know who the characters are. --Names the characters as often and unobtrusively as possible. iii) Handling entrances and exits. --Characters appear and disappear naturally to advance plot. iv) Making the most of the Elizabethan stage. --Place means less than action—words, action, costumes dictate setting. v) How Shakespeare sews together the action, varies tempo, combines comedy and tragedy and mixes the profound with the mundane. --Each plot needs to be interwoven with the others. --Change tempo regularly during 2 1/2-4 hours or 4000 lines of a play. --Ease up on the torture rack. This keeps the audience off balance. --Ordinary juxtaposed with serious and significant (Gravediggers scene in Hamlet). vi) Shakespeare's use of metadrama. --The ways in which the plays comment upon the nature of drama itself. --The line between stage action and real life is nonexistent. --What happens on stage is synecdochic (one thing stands for the whole) for life itself ("All the world's a stage").
    2. The instructor will then explain the following group activity that students will engage in during class time: In this activity each group will develop a version of A Midsummer Night's Dream that uses a completely different setting than Shakespeare intended. You may set the drama in any location/environment and time you wish to bearing in mind you will need to explain the "new" setting in relation to the following four concurrent plots: i) The courtship and marriage of Duke Theseus and Hippolyta. ii) The tribulations of the young lovers Hermia and Lysander, and Helena and Demetrius. iii) The hilarious attempts of the working men to present the play about Pyramus and Thisbe for Theseus' wedding. iv) The magical and mischievous world of the fairies. --Provide a brief overview of your new setting for the play outlining and listing its various attributes. --Describe how the concurrent plots of the play would be set/staged in your version. You may adapt the characters' roles/titles/identities when necessary and reasonable to fit the stage setting you have in mind. You may also change the tone of the various plots if it will assist in developing your version. --Finally, each group will than explain their new staging of the play to the class in a brief presentation.
    3. The instructor will present a lecture on the ways that Shakespeare establishes and develops relationships between characters in the play Hamlet. After the lecture students will partake in the following group activity: In groups of three, discuss the relationship between one of the following pairs of characters in Hamlet by addressing the questions and statements listed below. 1) Hamlet and Ophelia 2) Hamlet and Gertrude 3) Hamlet and Claudius 4) Hamlet and Rosencrantz/Guildenstern 5) Hamlet and Polonius 6) Hamlet and Horatio 7) Hamlet and Laertes 8) Polonius and Ophelia 9) Polonius and Laertes 10) Claudius and Gertrude In your group discuss the following issues comprehensively and thoroughly: i) Explain the nature of the relationship between the characters (who are they to each other and how do they relate to each other?). ii) List and outline the main interactions between the characters throughout the play. iii) Discuss and explain any aspects of the relationship that you find to be dysfunctional and problematic. iv) Discuss what you consider to be the root causes of the problems between the two characters. What character flaws or attributes lead to the problems between the characters? v) Read two different pieces of dialogue that epitomize the characters' problematic relationship.

    Distance Learning

    1. The instructor will post an academic journal article on Canvas and have students read the article and then post their reactions to it and discuss it on Discussion Boards. For example, the instructor will post the article, "What Do Women Want: The Merry Wives of Windsor" by Jonathan Goldberg, and students will react to it and interact with other students on Discussion Boards by posting at least four comments on the observations of other students in the class.
    2. Students will reflect upon an issue discussed in class and continue that discussion on Canvas through the use of Discussion Boards. For example, in class we briefly discussed a range of potential flaws that the character Hamlet exhibited and tried to determine, according to Aristotle's theory, what we felt his fatal flaw may have been. Before next week's class, students will now continue that discussion by interacting on Canvas Discussion Boards on at least three different occasions during the week. Students should spend a minimum of 30 minutes interacting with their classmates in discussion on canvas.

    Typical Out of Class Assignments

    Reading Assignments

    1. Read Shakespeare's Hamlet, including the introduction in The Riverside Shakespeare. Be prepared to discuss and analyze the work in class writing assignments and discussions. 2. In the class reader, read the excerpts from Carolyn Heilbrun's "The Character of Hamlet's Mother" and G Wilson Knight's "The Embassy of Death." Provide a short definition of the excerpt.

    Writing, Problem Solving or Performance

    1. Write a 5-7 page paper in which you address the following questions: Falstaff is used as a foil in the Henry plays. How does Shakespeare use Falstaff to reveal Hal's character in Henry IV and Henry V? 2. Before coming to class, answer the following questions about The Taming of the Shrew in a short paragraph each: a)What do you make of Petruchio? Are his motives in marrying Kate purely mercenary, or is there more to it? What about his methods of "taming" Kate? Is he cruel, is he doing it for her own good, or something else? b) Some have argued that the subplot (Bianca and her "tutors") is inferior to the main plot—even that it was written by a different person. What do you think?

    Other (Term projects, research papers, portfolios, etc.)

    Required Materials

    • The Riverside Shakespeare
      • Author: William Shakespeare
      • Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company
      • Publication Date: 1997
      • Text Edition: 2nd
      • Classic Textbook?:
      • OER Link:
      • OER:
    • The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works
      • Author: William Shakespeare
      • Publisher: Oxford University Press
      • Publication Date: 2005
      • Text Edition: 2nd
      • Classic Textbook?:
      • OER Link:
      • OER:
    • Shakespeare
      • Author: Bill Bryson
      • Publisher: Harper
      • Publication Date: 2009
      • Text Edition:
      • Classic Textbook?:
      • OER Link:
      • OER:
    • Arden Shakespeare: Complete works
      • Author: William Shakespeare
      • Publisher: Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare
      • Publication Date: 2011
      • Text Edition: 2nd
      • Classic Textbook?:
      • OER Link:
      • OER:
    • Single copy plays-- Hamlet, king Lear, Macbeth, The Merry wives of Windsor, Henry IV Part I, Double Falsehood
      • Author: William Shakespeare
      • Publisher: Arden Publishing Company
      • Publication Date: 2016
      • Text Edition: 3rd
      • Classic Textbook?:
      • OER Link:
      • OER:

    Other materials and-or supplies required of students that contribute to the cost of the course.