English 150A - Spring, 2011

British Drama to 1800

Class Information

Instructor: Bloom, Gina
Time: TR 1:40-3:00
Location: 168 Hoagland

Description

Topic: Gender and Sexuality on the Early Modern Stage

In this course we will read a range of plays from the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, focusing in particular on how these plays represent gender and sexuality. The course will be especially interested in how the plays were staged: what the early modern theater looked like, who acted in the plays, and who came to see them. We will begin by studying several early tragedies concerned with adultery and its relation to crime, asking why adultery is such a popular theme in early modern drama. We will then read several comedies that call attention to the early modern theater’s use of boy actors to play female roles, asking why cross-dressed actors were not only acceptable but enticing for early modern audiences. We will close with several plays about the problem of female chastity, considering not only why female chastity was valued in early modern English society but also how the chaste woman becomes linked to broader concerns about political stability in England.

Grading

Requirements will include quizzes, two papers, and a final exam.

Plays we are likely to read:
Kyd, Spanish Tragedy
Anon., Arden of Faversham
Heywood, A Woman Killed with Kindness
Beaumont, Knight of the Burning Pestle
Jonson, Epicene
Middleton and Dekker, The Roaring Girl
Middleton, The Changeling
Middleton, A Game at Chess

Texts

The Routledge Anthology of Renaissance Drama, Simon Barker and Hilary Hinds (eds.)
A Game at Chess, Middleton; T.H. Howard-Hill (ed.)