ENG 405F (L5001): STUDIES IN AN INDIVIDUAL WRITERS, PRE-1800
SHAKESPEARE (1997-98)
COURSE DESCRIPTION

Department of English, University of Toronto, 1997-98

Instructor: Professor Ian Lancashire
Office: Room 122, Wetmore Hall, New College
Phone: 978-8279
Office Hours: Monday 3:15-4; Friday 11-12
Class hours: Wednesday 6-8
E-mail: ian@chass.utoronto.ca
URL: http://www.chass.utoronto.ca:8080/~ian/index.html

Contents

General Description of Course

This course will study Shakespeare's last works (1609-13): the Sonnets and The Lover's Complaint (1609), Cymbeline (ca. 1609-11), The Winter's Tale (ca. 1610-11), The Tempest (1611), A Funeral Elegy (attributed; 1612), Henry VIII (1612-13), and The Two Noble Kinsmen (1613). The last two are co-authored with John Fletcher.

Course Textbook

The Complete Works of Shakespeare. Edited by David Bevington. Updated 4th edn. New York: Longman, 1997. This is available at the university Bookstore (College and St. George St.). Many other editions of Shakespeare exist but few contain all the last works.

Provisional Course Requirements

The course grade will be based on one seminar paper, informed seminar participation, and a term project, as follows:
  1. seminar paper--30%
  2. informed seminar participation--20%
  3. term project--50%

Students should choose one of the seminar topics in the schedule (below) by Sept. 17, if possible, but no later than Sept. 24. Each topic asks the student to describe, analyze and evaluate one critical book or article in light of the play being discussed that week. To do an effective seminar, you need to have a sound understanding of the play and the critical piece and to have something useful to say about both. This paper should take about 20-25 minutes to read, and another 25 minutes to discuss in class. (A rough guide for length is 10 pages, double-spaced.) A written version of the paper should be handed in at the end of that seminar class.

The course project is an edition of one scene (about 100-150 lines) from a play on the course reading list.

The edition should include: (1) a 2500-word introduction that covers the text of the scene--i.e., which text? (folio? quarto?), variant readings among those texts, and emendations you believe yourself required to make--the author/s (who and why?), sources (see Bullough), date, staging, and interpretative commentary; (2) a modern-spelling version of the text; (3) notes showing the textual variants and emendations (earliest quartos, if any; the 1623 folio; and major modern editions--Arden, Bevington, New Oxford, New Variorum, Norton, and Riverside); and, perhaps the most challenging, (4) annotation or commentary on words, phrases, passages, etc., in the scene.

Students should give me a proposal on which scene they wish to edit by Oct. 8. You must consult major editions of that work, contemporary dictionaries, and a selection of criticism published in the past ten years. Use the Modern Language Association of America New Variorum Shakespeare editions as a model of how the edition should look.

Projects must be handed in personally at class or date-stamped at the Porter's Lodge at Wetmore Hall on the date they are due. No e-mail submissions. Late work will be penalized 5% per day late.

Course Conduct and Provisional Schedule

Each week, the course will meet for a single lecture-seminar. I will lead classes in the first three weeks. Afterwards, half of each class will consist of a student seminar, one hour long (a paper of 20-25 minutes, and class discussion led by the student for another 25 minutes). The course is an advanced seminar; each student must attend and participate in all classes.