RENAISSANCE STUDIES

This first-year course, as part of the LLEAP degree course, will furnish the students with advanced knowledge in the fields of English-speaking literatures and cultures (critical theories and methodologies, textual analysis and cultural-historical context). The course is part of the syllabus of EUROPEAN JOINT DEGREE IN ENGLISH AND AMERICAN STUDIES, and the competence achieved will be tested in the foreign universities where Joint Degree students spend a semester as part of the programme, in interaction with international students.

The course generally aims to develop students’ proficiency in the field of the history of English literature and culture of the early modern period (16th and 17th centuries). Students will enhance their skills in textual analysis of both poetical and dramatic works, and in relating literary texts to their historical and cultural contexts, as well as to their subsequent reception (including rewriting and adaptation practices) up to the present. The analytic skills students have learnt to use in their BA course will be further verified and developed, to include knowledge of literary history, rhetoric, philology, critical methodology, and theory. In addition, they will broaden their experience in autonomous work and in discussing the results of their own research.
The learning outcomes of the course are 1. development of knowledge and understanding of the literary texts and the historical period; 2. the skill to apply this knowledge and understanding to a variety of texts;, 3. the ability to formulate judgements in analyzing literary and cultural phenomena; 4. the development of advanced communication skills in English; 5. the development of learning skills.

Students must be fully proficient in English: they must be able to speak English accurately and fluently as they will have to read early modern texts, understand lectures and take part in classroom discussions and presentations. Ideally, students should be familiar with Shakespeare's plays, their historical context and the theatrical culture of his time as well as the main conventions of Elizabethan drama (theatres, acting, language, etc).

Title: WITCHCRAFT AND DRAMA. REPRESENTATIONS OF MAGIC ON THE ELIZABETHAN AND JACOBEAN STAGE

The course will explore the cultural as well as mental world of early modern Elizabethans and Jacobeans regarding the Occult, a world that was open to incorporating magic, witchcraft practices, astrology, alchemy etc. Playwrights exploited witchcraft and magic beliefs with which their audiences were familiar and brought to the stage intriguing fantasies of witches and magic rituals. Such representations show that a link developed in the minds of early modern writers between magic and theatricality. The course will investigate the way the emergence of the stage witch as a clear and recognizable stage type connected with questions of gender in the political and social realms, as well as the way adaptations/remediations of the witch plays have interpreted, refashioned and updated the discourse of witchcraft for contemporary readers and spectators. Part of the course will be devoted to adaptations of "Macbeth", "The Tempest" and "Othello" in popular culture.

All the articles and volumes indicated below (primary and secondary sources) are COMPULSORY reading and will be discussed during the final exam:

PRIMARY SOURCES
William Shakespeare, MACBETH. (suggested edition: OUP, edited by Nicholas Brooke, 1990);
William Shakespeare, THE TEMPEST (suggested edition: The Arden Shakespeare, edited by V. Mason Vaughan, revised edition, Bloombsbury, 2011);
Ben Jonson, THE MASQUE OF QUEENS in David Lindley, COURT MASQUES. JACOBEAN AND CAROLINE ENTERTAINMENTS 1605-1640, OUP, 1995, pp. 35-53(the text of the masque is also available online at the following address http://hollowaypages.com/jonson1692fame.htm )
William Rowley, Thomas Dekker and John Ford, THE WITCH OF EDMONTON (suggested edition: Manchester University Press, edited by Peter Corbin and Douglas Sedge, 1997);
Mary Cowden Clarke, "The Thane's Daughter" in THE GIRLHOOD OF SHAKESPEARE'S HEROINES, volume 1, CUP, 2009 (first ed. 1851), pp. 93-168 (available on Moodle)
Charles and Mary Lamb, "Macbeth" in TALES FROM SHAKESPEARE, 1807 (available in several modern editions and online
http://pinkmonkey.com/dl/library1/digi262.pdf

Students are advised to buy the suggested editions of the texts when indicated. Additional texts (excerpts from Dr Faustus, Othello etc.) will be made available in Moodle (http://moodle.unive.it ) - students will have to download them in advance and bring them to class.

CONTEXT AND CRITICISM (equally compulsory)

Helen Hackett, A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLISH RENAISSANCE DRAMA, London, I.B. Tauris, 2013.
Malcolm Gaskill, WITCHCRAFT. A VERY SHORT INTRODUCTION, 2010
Laura Tosi, "How Many Children Read Lady Macbeth? Prose Versions of the Scottish Play for Children", The Shakespearean International Yearbook, vol. 13, 2013, pp. 73-92 (available in Moodle)
Julie Sanders, ADAPTATION AND APPROPRIATION, Routledge, 2006 (pp. 1-62)

Class presentation + oral exam at the end of the course. The final oral exam will cover all issues included in assigned reading, lectures and texts downloaded from the Moodle platform. Before taking the exam, students are required to choose a topic related to the course (after previous consultation with Prof. Tosi in her office hours) and discuss it in an oral presentation in class. The presentation is an essential requirement: students who haven't presented in class won't be admitted to the oral exam. In the oral exam students will have to show that they have become proficient in understanding and analysing both poetical and dramatic works, and relating literary texts to their historical and cultural contexts and to contemporary revisions of those texts. In the presentation students will have to prove that they have acquired the skill to make critical and autonomous judgments. Levels of linguistic knowledge and of the ability to communicate will also be assessed.

Lectures, analysis of Shakespeare's plays on DVD and class discussions, lectures by international scholars.

English

As part of the course, students will be expected to attend a number of lectures and talks (in English), by national and international experts on Shakespeare and Early Modern drama. Lecture topics and a schedule will be communicated at the beginning of the course.

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