ENGL 2080 - Shakespeare and the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries

(crosslisted) PMA 2681
(HB) (LA-AS)

Spring. 4 credits. Student option grading.

May be used as one of the three pre-1800 courses required of English majors.

S. Davis.

What can we learn about Shakespeare’s plays from their reception by late modernity? What can we learn about modern cultures from the way they appropriate these texts and the Shakespeare mystique? We will study five plays and their adaptations in film and theater and explore the uses made of Shakespeare in education, advertising, and public culture and by the Shakespeare industry itself. For spring 2018: Titus Andronicus, King Lear, Midsummer Night’s Dream, Merchant of Venice, and Tempest, with films or filmed productions directed by Julie Taymor, Grigori Kozintsev, Akira Kurosawa, Trevor Nunn, Max Reinhardt, and Fred Wilcox. For updates, see http://courses.cit.cornell.edu/sad4449/2080/.