Syllabus

FS301 Unique number # 33496

"Humor in Shakespeare' s Comedies"

Week I
Aug. 29, 2002 W
General Introduction to the course. Proposed Readings and Work plan. Some useful definitions.
Week II
Sept. 3, 2002 T
Humor in the Comedies.
As You Like It
Sept. 5, TH
New Comedy, the Language of Love, The Gender issue.
As You Like It
Week III
Sept. 10, T
The humours: sanguine, choleric, phlegmatic, melancholic.
Air, fire, water and earth. Vices and virtues.
Twelfth Night
Sept. 12, TH
The "seven ages" of Shakespeare's Life
Childhood, schooling, youth, success..., maturity, last years in London, in retirement.
4th age: 1595 - 1600, 5th: 1601 - 1607, 6th: 1608 - 1611, 7th: retirement.
Twelfth Night

Week IV
Sept. 17, T
Sh's stage: early stages, public outdoor theater and private indoor theatre, the masque.
Staging, a scene performed, actors and acting, costumes and props, the audience.
Love's Labours Lost
Sept. 19, TH
Music and songs in Sh's staging.
Love's Labours Lost

Week V
Sept. 24, T
FAC 227 has been confirmed for Tuesday, September 24 from 9:30-11.
freshman seminar library instruction session:
Renaisance Society. Country life, the family, the city life, life at court.
Sept. 25, TH
Fools, clowns and Jesters.
The profoundly original comedies
Midsummer Night's Dream

Week VI
Oct. 1, T

Much Ado About Nothing
Actors from the British Scene
Oct. 3, TH
Much Ado About Nothing
Actors from the British Scene

Week VII
Oct. 8, T

Renaissance Society: Country life, husbandry, the family.
The Taming of the Shrew
Oct. 10, TH
Literature, art and music: prose, poetry, women writers, publishing, renaissance art, architecture in England, music.
The Taming of the Shrew
 

Week VIII
Oct. 15, T

Falstaff's historical role re-edited as a acomedy to see him married.
Henry the VIII and the Tudors, Elizabeth, King James, crime and the law, the puritans.
Merry Wives of Windsor
Oct. 17, TH
The comedy that seems a tragedy.
Merchant of Venice
News: A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Running Oct. 17 - 27 in the Oscar G. Brockett Theatre  (click on link to see map).

Week IX
Oct. 22, T

The first experiment in comedy and all the errors you can make.
The Comedy of Errors
Oct. 24, TH
Improving on the first experiment, getting better. Second attempt.
Two Gentleman of Verona

Week X
Oct. 29, T

The two dark comedies:
Measure for Measure
Oct. 31, TH
All's Well That Ends Well
Conclusion on Comedies and Midterm paper due.

Week XI
Nov. 5, T
Humor in the Romances: Britain and Rome
Cymbeline
Nov. 7, TH
Tales of tragic jealousy and pastoral rebirth.
A Winter's Tale

Week XII
Nov. 12, T
Sh's Testament.
The Tempest
Nov. 14, TH
A brave new world. Identity and the other.
The Tempest 

November 17 Sunday
News
:
Much Ado about Nothing.
Running Oct. 17 - 27 in the Oscar G. Brockett Theatre  (click on link to see map).

Week XIII
Nov. 19, T
Scenes, characters and situations of "humor" in the Tragedies.
Romeo and Juliet
Nov. 21, TH
Hamlet

Week XIV
Nov. 26, T
Othello
Nov. 28, TH
King Lear

Week XV
Dec. 3, T
Macbeth
Dec. 5, TH
Final Examen
Final Paper due

Batts 304
Office hours: MWF 10:00 to 11:00
or by appointment call 232 4525

e-mail: fores@uv.es

Please do NOT send papers or homework to this e-mail address.



Bibliography and thematic index
 
I. Complete Works

The Oxford Shakespeare, The Complete Works. With a general Introduction, and Introductions to individual works, by Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor, General Editors. One volume. Clarendon Press. OUP. 1988.
W.Sh. Comedies, Histories & Tragedies.
First Folio, London, 1623. Folger Shakespeare Library. Octavo Digital Editions. 2001. CD-Rom.
Open Source Shakespeare Edition.
CD-Rom. University of Central Lancashire. 2000.
The Norton Facsimile of the First Folio of Shakespeare
. By C.Hinman. New York, 1968. 

II. Comedies,  study editions.
Example:

Twelfth Night or What you Will

Cambridge Shakespeare. W.G. Clark and W.A. Wright, Cambridge. 1866
New Variorum. H.H. Furness, Philadelphia. 1901.
Arden Shakespeare. M.Luce. London. 1906.
Cambridge Shakespeare. A. Quiller-Couch and J.D. Wilson. Cambridge. 1930. Expanded 1949.
New Penguin Shakespeare. M.M. Mahood. Harmondsworth. 1968.
New Arden Shakespeare. J.M. Lothian and T.W. Craik. London, 1975.
New Cambridge Shakespeare. E.S. Donno. Cambridge.1985

III. Specific Studies

Example: Twelfth Night

Adams, B.B., "Orsino and the Spirit of Love", in Shakespeare Quarterly, XXIX, 1978
Barnett, S., "Charles Lamb and the Tragic Malvolio", in Philological Quarterly, XXXIII. 1954
Barton, A., "AYL and TN: Sh's Sense of an Ending", in Shakespearian Comedy; by D.Palmer& M.Bradbury, London, 1972.
Berry, R., "The Season of TN" in Comedy, New Perspectives, edited by M. Charney, N.Y., 1978.
    _ "TN: The Experience of the Audience", in Shakespeare Survey, XXXIV, 1981.
Booth, S. "Twelfth Night: 1.1: The Audience as malvolio", in Shakespeare's "Rough Magic". Renaissance Essays in Honor of C.L.Barber, edited by P.Erickson and C.Kahn, Newark, Del. 1985.
Brissenden, A., "The dance in AYL and TN" in Cahiers élisabéthians, 13, 1978.
Brown, J.R., "Directions of TN", (1961), in Shakespeare's Plays in Performance, 1966.
Carroll, W.C., "The Ending of TN and the Tradition of Metamorphosis", in  Shakespearean Comedy,edited by M.Charney, N.Y., 1980.
Charney, M., "TN and the 'natural perspectives' of Comedy", in De Shakespaere à T.S.Eliot: Mélanges offerts à Henry Fluchère, Paris, 1976.
_ "Comic Premises of TN, in his Comedy, New Perspectives, N.Y., 1978.
Crane, M., TN and Shakespeare Comedy", in Shakespeare Quarterly, VI, 1965.
Draper, A.S., The Twelfth Night of Shakespeare's Audience, N.Y., 1950.
Eagelton, T., "Language and Reaqlity in TN", in Critical Quarterly, IX, 1957.
Gregson, J.M., Shakespeare: Twelfth Night, London, 1980.
Greif, K., "Plays and Playing in TN", in Shakespeare Survey, XXXIV, 1981.
Hardy, B., Twelfth Night, London, 1962.
Hawkes, T., "Comedy, Orality and Duplicity: MND and TN", in Shakespearean Comedy, edited by M.Charney, N.Y., 1980.
Hollander, J., "Musica Mundana and TN" in English Institute Essays, edited by Northrop Frye, N.Y., 1956.
Hotson, L., The First Night of Twelfth Night. London, 1954.
Huston, J.D., "When I Came to Man's Estate": TN and the problems of identity", in Modern language Quarterly, XXXIII, 1972.
Jenkins, H., Shakespeare's TN,  Rice Institute Pamphlet XLV, 1959.
King, W.N. (ed.), Twentieth Century Interpretations of 'TN', Englewood Cliffs, 1968.
Krieger, E. "The Quality of Persons and the Time: TN" in Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Americanistik, XXV, 1977.
Lamb, M.E., "Ovid's Metamorphoses and Sh's TN", in Shakespearean Comedy, edited by M.Charney, N.Y., 1980.
Leech, C. "Sh's Comic Duke", in A Review of English Literature, V, 1964.
_ TN and Shakespearean Comedy, Toronto, 1965
Levin, H., "The Underplot of TN", in De Shakespaere à T.S.Eliot: Mélanges offerts à Henry Fluchère, Paris, 1976.
Lewalsky, B., "Thematic Patterns in TN", in Shakespeare Studies, I. 1965.
Logan, T.L., "TN: The limits of Festivity", in Studies in English Literature, XXII, 1982.
Markles, J., "Sh's Confluence of Tragedy and Comedy: TN and KL", in Shakespeare Quarterly, XV, 1964.
Melchiori, G., "Introduction to TN", in W.SH: Le Commedie Romantiche, Milano. 1982.
Montegut,E., "The Carnival World of TN"(1867), in Variorum Edition of TN, edited by H.H.Furness, Philadelphia, 1901.
Palmer, D.J. (ed.), Shakespeare, Twelfth Night. A Casebook, London, 1972.
__ "TN and the Myth of Echo and Narcissus", in Shakespeare Survey, XXXII, 1979.
Potter, L., TN (Text and Performance), London, 1985.
Preston, D.R., "The Minor Characters in TN", in Shakespeare Quarterly, XXI, 1970.
Priestley, J.B. "The English Comic Characters" (1925), reprinted under the title of "The Illyrians" in TN: Critical Essays , edited by Stanley Wells, N.Y., 1986.
Salingar, D.G., "The Design of TN" in Shakespeare Quarterly, IX, 1958.
Siegel, P.N., "MAlvolio: COmic Puritan Automaton", in Shakespearean Comedy, edited by M.Charney, N.Y., 1980.
Summers, J.H., "The masks of TN", in University if Kansas City Review, XXII, (1933?).
Tobin, J.J.M., "Gabriel harvey in Illyria", in English Studies, LXI, 1980.
Ungerer, G.G., "My Lady's a Catayan, We are Politicians. Malvolio's a Peg-a-Ramsey", in Shakespeare Survey, XXXII, 1979.
Warren, R., "Smiling at Grief: Some Techniques of Comedy in TN and Cosi Fan Tutte", in Shakespeare Survey, XXXII, 1979.
Wells, S. (ed.) TN: Critical Essays, N.Y., 1986.
Williams, P.Jr., "Mistakes in TN and their Resolution" in PMLA, LXXVI, 1961.


IV. Shakespeare's Times and Cultural Context

V. Shakespeare Today
(performances, editions and theories)

VI. Cinema, Audio-books, Internet and other formats
VII. Other arts (paintings, opera, etc.)
VIII. On humor: some definitions.
Kirby Olson: Comedy after Postmodernism: rereading comedy (2001). Texas Tech University Press.
Richard S. Carlson: The Benign Humorists. (1975). Archon Books.
James W. Barron, ed.: Humor and Psyche. Psychoanalytic Perspectives. (1999). The Analitic Press.
Richard J. Alexander: Aspects of Verbal Humour in English. (1997). Günter Narr Verlag, Tübingen.
Mahadev L. Apte: Humor and Laughter. An Anthropological Approach. (1985). Cornell University Press.
Marvin R. Koller: Humor and Society: Explorations in the Sociology of Humor. (1988). Cap and Gown Press.
Paul Tabori: The Humor and the Technology of Sex. (1969). Julian Press.

VIII. Essays and other materials
(used in the classroom)

Shakespeare Magazine.Volume 1, Issue 3 Spring 1997
Teacher Favorites: Comedies in the Classroom
Shakespeare Magazine. Volume 1, Issue 5 Fall 1998
Playing with Subtext:  Using Groucho to Teach Shakespeare. By John S. O'Conner.

  list to be continued



TTH 930 - 1100 in Calhoun 323
http://www.uv.es/~fores/fc33496.html
© Copyright August 2002 by Dr. Vicente Forés
© Diseño de la página-web 2001 - 2002: by Dr. Vicente Forés, last up-date Austin, 9th September 2002