ENGL 51.01 Plays, Playing, and Publicity
We will read plays by Shakespeare and his contemporaries including Marlowe, Dekker, Heywood, Jonson and others. Rather than considering them primarily as authored, literary texts, however, we will investigate them as products of a professional and commercial system—not unlike Hollywood—and as popular media in an age without journalism. Plays will be grouped in clusters that foreground roughly contemporary texts and/or performances in dialogue and competition with each other. Readings will also address the physical and social spaces of performance and the controversies about theater. Students interested in twentieth century productions of early modern plays or more general twentieth century issues of media and performance are welcome.
Department-Specific Course Categories
Course Group I