Ways of Reading: Adapting Shakespeare
ENGL 201A
Fall 2017 not offered
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Ways of Reading courses introduce students to the characteristics thought of as literary and the methods for studying them. This is a gateway course into the English major. Only one of the ENGL201 series may be taken for credit.
Ways of Reading courses develop strategies for careful and close reading, and techniques for the analysis of literary forms such as poetry and drama, and prose narratives such as novels and short stories. They familiarize students with some of the protocols of the literary-critical essay, examine the idea of literature as a social institution, and explore ways of connecting textual details and the world beyond the text. The ways of reading learned in the course are powerful tools for critically assessing discourses that expand far beyond the realm of literature. So while students will become adept literary critics, they also will learn quickly that to be a literary critic is to read critically and carefully all the time: in poems, novels, and plays, but also in political speech, in popular culture, and in the discourses that shape everyday life.
This course examines how select works from Shakespeare's corpus adapted works by his predecessors and contemporaries, how they were revised in print during his lifetime, and how they were revised and adapted by his successors on the stage, page, and screen. Through guided exercises and short papers on topics such as textual criticism, formalism, historicism, intertextuality, and genre, students will learn crucial tools, methods, and concepts of literary analysis. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA ENGL |
| Course Format: Lecture / Discussion | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: None |
Major Readings:
This course is still being developed. Likely texts include:
Jorges Luis Borges, PIERRE MENARD, AUTHOR OF DON QUIXOTE
Jonathan Lethem, THE ECSTACY OF INFLUENCE: A PLAGIARISM
Walter Benjamin, THE WORK OF ART IN THE AGE OF MECHANICAL REPRODUCTION
William Shakespeare, KING LEAR
Jane Smiley, A THOUSAND ACRES
Vladimir Nabokov, PALE FIRE
Selected Poems
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Examinations and Assignments:
Numerous and regular short and medium length writing assignments. |
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