Course Code: ELT211
Synopsis
Understanding Shakespeare: Plays and Sonnets will examine three Shakespeare plays—Richard III, Macbeth, and The Tempest—as well as a selection of Shakespeare’s Sonnets. The course focuses on making the language and themes clear to a modern reader. The relevance of the plays’ and sonnets’ issues in the twenty-first century will also be explored.
Level: 5
Credit Units: 5
Presentation Pattern: Every semester
Topics
- Introduction to Shakespeare’s Plays
- Richard III
- Macbeth
- The Tempest
- “Problems” and Performance
- The Sonnets
Learning Outcome
- Discuss Shakespearean conventions of writing in the plays
- Explain the structure of the Shakespearean sonnet
- Analyse Shakespeare’s language and dramatic conventions
- Examine the thematic concerns in the plays and the sonnets
- Demonstrate the role of the cultural, historical, and political conditions of the production of these plays
- Determine the relevance of the plays and sonnets in the twenty-first century