This class will examine two Shakespeare’s most dramatized subjects: warfare and the soldiers who engaged in it. In exploring these subjects, we will discuss the literary aesthetics of violence and battle, as well as the capacity––and limitations––of the English stage to portray them.
Over the course of the semester, we will read several history plays and tragedies, apparently the most fitting genres for plays about warfare. Students in the course will battle Henry V, Macbeth, and Coriolanus, and Antony and Cleopatra; their exploits with these texts will be supplemented by brief skirmishes with contrastingly light-humored works about war by Shakespeare’s less famous contemporaries, including the anonymous Famous Victories of Henry V and Thomas Dekker’s The Shoemaker’s Holiday.
In addition to questions of imagery, tone, genre, and staging, we will also tackle the issue of personal responsibility with respect to national affairs, both as an early modern problem Shakespeare explored in his works and as a postmodern dilemma that Shakespeare’s works prompt us to explore in our own complicated world of wars and warriors.
Major assignments for the course will include the following:
- a presentation on assigned aspects of warfare in early modern culture to supplement our reading of one of the assigned literary texts
- a group project in which students will develop strategies for staging battle scenes and additional material from the plays
- one short close reading paper and a longer final literary analysis
Statue of Shakespeare in Central Park, NYC.