Skip to main content
Department of English
Search
Log in
Navigation
About
Current Office Hours
Diversity Resources
English Library
Faculty Statement Archives
Internal Dept Resources
Medieval and Early Modern Studies
University Writing Program
Video Guides & Worksheets
Visit us on Facebook
Major/Minor in English
Advising
Creative Writing Application
Honors Program
Internships
Literary Magazines
Major Requirements Guide & FAQ
Minor Requirements
Study Abroad
Why Major in English?
MFA in Creative Writing
Admissions
Events, Prizes, and Resources
MFA Program Faculty
Newly Admitted Grad Students
Resources
Ph.D. in Literature
About
Admissions
Newly Admitted Grad Students
PhD Alumni Directory
Resources
Courses & Schedules
People
News & Events
Off the Syllabus Podcast
Recent News
Contests
Contest Winners
Previous Contest Winners
Newsletters
You are here
Home
»
Courses & Schedules
English 189-3 - Winter, 2013
Seminar in Literary Studies
Topic: The Politics of Genre in Tudor-Stuart Drama
Class Information
Instructor:
Friedlander, Robert
CRN:
73746
Time:
MW 12:10-1:30
Location:
308 Voorhies
Description
The Politics of Genre in Tudor-Stuart Drama
This course will examine some of the best plays written in English during the life of William Shakespeare – just not any plays written by Shakespeare. Shakespeare’s career coincided with a flowering of dramatic talent in 16th and 17th century England, and this course examines how the greatest other playwrights of that era explored its major cultural and political preoccupations: nationhood, gender and sexual politics, social unrest, and economic misfortune. We will be particularly focused on the ways in which dramatic genre and socio-political history interact in these texts. We might ask, for example, to what degree dramatic genre (comedy, history, tragedy, tragicomedy) determines a text’s view of nationhood, or what it means when representations of gender and sexuality differ among plays of the same genre. It is my hope that over the course of the semester we will begin to question the definition of genre in the first place, asking why and how such distinctions are made, what their utility is, and whether we might think of alternate ways of categorizing the texts we read. Similarly, I would like us to unsettle our definitions of the political categories we will be working with, by asking questions like: how are the distinctions we make between rich and poor, man and woman, and our nation and foreign nations different than those made in early modern England, and what can we learn about our own political thought (and theirs) from these differences?
Texts will include Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy, Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II, Ben Jonson’s Epicoene, Thomas Heywood’s A Woman Killed With Kindness, Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker’s The Roaring Girl, and John Fletcher’s Philaster. Assignments will include a short paper, a long paper, regular online response papers and weekly contributions to the class wiki.