Syllabus: Shakespeare in the Movies, ENG 0922 (Fall 2019)

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Genre
Syllabus
Date
2019
Author
Faunce, Rob
Department
English
Subject
Motion pictures--Study and teaching
Film adaptations--History and criticism
Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616--Film adaptations
Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12613/186

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DOI
http://dx.doi.org/10.34944/dspace/172
Description
Shakespeare has contributed the building blocks for so much of Western literature over the last few centuries, and so many stencils from which other intricate works of art have been derived. Among these works are film adaptations (literally or inspired by his works) that are malleable & putty for interpretation and interrogation by scholars such as yourselves. Power, desire, aging, performance, masculinity/femininity: this is a short list of the themes Shakespeare gives, and directors and adaptors have worked from, in the films we will watch in this class. We will play with some literary & film theory to deepen and enhance our understanding of these works, and will consider intersections of race, class, power, sexuality, and especially gender in our conversations and work product in this class. We will think about performance and tactility, with a field trip to Charles Library’s Special Collections Research Center, and an award-winning guest speaker, Oana Botez, who has grappled with our questions from the perspective of costume design. Mostly, we will come back to overgrown, immature boys, in all ages and guises, from Henry IV gallivanting with the fool Falstaff to King Lear bantering with (literally) the Fool. How have these tropes of immaturity and the heroic flaw emerged from those plays into modern consciousness, and how do they ripple through other questions of gender, race, and class? Can we consider Ophelia without understanding toxic masculinity? Can Glenda Jackson play Lear without us thinking of intersections of gender, class, and age? We’ll ask those questions, and more, and proffer some answers.
Citation
Faunce, Rob. Syllabus for Shakespeare in the Movies. Department of English, Temple U, Philadelphia, Fall 2019.
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