Course for international guest/part time students
- Faculty
- Faculty of Humanities
- Organization
- BTK Department of English Studies
- Code
- OT-ANG17-390.11
- Title
- Elective Specialisation: The Villain and the Perpetrator in Early Modern English Drama
- Usual semester
- Both
- ECTS
- 3
- Language
- Learning outcomes
- This course will provide a closer reading and interpretation of Early Modern English Drama, from the roots of the character of the villain (classical and medieval) to Kyd’s, Marlowe’s and Shakespeare’s plays. Macbeth and Richard III will be discussed in more detail, but we are going to have a look at other plays’ villains, too (such as the archetypal Mephistophilis in Faustus, Claudius in Hamlet, Iago in Othello or Edmund in King Lear). The course also aims to provide a cultural/historical background for the issue of evil and villainy.
- Course content
- The course will provide an opportunity for students not only to practise their drama-close-reading skills, but also to look for possible explanations and solutions through the plays of Shakespeare to such relevant and controversial questions as: what makes a villain? how can we define villainy? is there an excuse for their actions? what makes these characters so attractive, even likeable at times? The chosen plays are The Second Shepherds’ Play, Everyman, The Spanish Tragedy; Doctor Faustus, Tamburlaine the Great, Richard III, Macbeth, Othello, Titus Andronicus, King Lear, The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado; Twelfth Night (tentative list; can be changed according to students’ needs and interests).
- Assessment method
- Active in-class participation; presentation (optional); lesson plan; Canvas quizzes and assignments;
- Bibliography
- Arden-Shakespeare sorozat darabjai; Introductions to the Arden Shakespeare editions; Maurice Charney: Shakespeare’s Villains (2012) Charlotte Spivack: The Comedy of Evil on Shakespeare’s Stage (1979) Steven Berkoff's Shakespeare's Heroes And Villains (video)