208 IntroInfo S07

English 208
Spring 2008
MWF 12:20-1:10
B21 Lincoln Hall

Stuart Davis, Senior Lecturer
Goldwin Smith g39
hrs. T 11:00-12:00, R 2-3, & by appt.
5-6281 • sad4@cornell.edu
Reader: Danielle Haque

Shakespeare

and

the Twentieth Century

What can we learn about Shakespeare's plays from their reception in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries? What can we learn about modern cultures from their appropriations of these texts? We will study five plays and their adaptations in film and theater and explore the uses made of Shakespeare in education, advertising, and public culture and in the "Shakespeare industry" itself. Our discussions will explore the vast differences and surprising continuities among the Shakespeares handed down by earlier times and those recovered or constructed in the modern eras; we will also pay attention to the variety of critical approaches readers and performers have taken to Shakespeare. For spring 2008: Romeo and Juliet, Richard III, Othello, Lear, and As You Like It, together with with plays by Wendy Wasserstein and Bertolt Brecht, a novel by Jane Smiley, the Schwartz Center's production of As You Like It, and films or filmed performances directed by John Madden, Baz Luhrmann, Richard Loncraine, Trevor Nunn, Janet Suzman, Akira Kurosawa, and Peter Brook.

Required texts:

Greenblatt, Stephen et al. The Norton Shakespeare: Based on the Oxford Edition. First ed. (W.W. Norton: 1997.)

Course Packet and Required Reading (Cornell Store Custom Publishing: spring 2008). [Contains articles and Brecht's The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui, trans George Tabori.]

Smiley, Jane, A Thousand Acres (Knopf: 1991)

downloads of texts from the course website(s), the library, or elsewhere on the Web (marked "E" on syllabus).

Features, guidelines, and requirements:

We'll read the plays in the Norton edition, which you are requested (with apologies for weight and volume) to bring to class daily. Assignments will include the introductory and historical material in this book. Unless you hear otherwise, plan to read the Norton introduction and the first two acts of any play for the day on which we begin it.
Other readings will be found in required texts listed above or will be available at the course website. The open site is at ( http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/Courses/engl208/), and you may be there already. The closed site, "Shakespeare and the Twentieth Century," is accessible to Blackboard users through http://www.blackboard.cornell.edu/. It is up to you to establish a Blackboard user name and enroll yourself at the site in the first week of class. Don't just skim electronic readings on the screen; print them out and bring them to class with you.
Regular attendance is expected from everyone, and participation is a feature of the course. Meetings will include lectures and discussions: the size of the class will determine how much of each will go on. You are responsible for material covered in all classes, including changes in schedule or assignments.
Written work will include an in-class paper (F 2/22), three 4-5 page out-of-class papers, a reflection paper on Shakesepare in your educational experience (ungraded), a final project ("Traces and Appropriations") and a final exam. Because we will question the common wisdom about Shakespeare's "universality" in place and time, one part of the final will ask you to write a short essay contesting Ben Jonson's time-worn remark about Shakespeare: "He was not of an age, but for all time" (see Norton Shakespeare, 3352). This question will enable you to write about course materials which you have not yet addressed IN other coursework.
Films on videotape and videodisc are an integral part of the course: you should view each one in advance of the class(es) at which it is discussed. MOST will be screened twice (typically, Sunday and Monday evenings). Copies will be on 3-hour reserve at the Uris Reserve Desk and can be viewed in the main Olin Media room.
Everyone is expected to see the Schwartz Center's production of As You Like It, directed by Neal Freeman, on April 24, 25, or 26. It is up to you to purchase tickets.
Stuart's office hours are given above: he encourages you to visit during those periods and at other times in the week by appointment.
Updates to schedule will be posted at the course website. So will relevant links and short excerpts from critical commentary and reference material: these are called "scholia." You'll be notified of major changes, but you should check the site regularly.
All the written work you submit in this course must have been prepared for this course in this semester and not another and must be original with you in content and expression, with all contributory sources fully and specifically acknowledged. By enrolling in this course you affirm that you are familiar with Cornell's Academic Integrity Code, which prohibits "knowingly representing the work of others as one's own" and "using, obtaining, or providing unauthorized assistance on . . . academic work" and is available on-line at http://cuinfo.cornell.edu/Academic/AIC.html. To refresh your familiarity with the proper citation of sources, go to the tutorial "Recognizing and Avoiding Plagiarism" at http://plagiarism.arts.cornell.edu/tutorial/index.cfm. In this course, the normal penalty for an infraction of the code is an "F" for the semester.
Your grade will be determined this way: the four short papers (60%); the final (20%); attendance and participation (10%): your "Traces and Appropriations" project (10%).
"Traces and Appropriations" names a small final project for which you will collect allusions to Shakespeare and citations of the plays and poems in the news, politics, popular music, or film; on T.V. or the Internet; in advertisements, cartoons, crossword puzzles, jokes, urban belief tales, etc. (Your collection should reach Stuart in portfolio form by Friday, May 11 with a short preface by you. But you're encouraged to keep and eye out for such things all semester and bring to class or circulate items that you find. If they're online, send me the URLs and I'll post them on the website. There will be a small, sentimentally valuable prize for the most offensive or improbable find or the most thoughtfully compiled portfolio.

Main • UP • Syllabus • Scholia • Credits