Shakespeare 1 is an elective for third-and fourth year students. This course aims to introduce the life and work of William Shakespeare. Shakespeare I focuses on Shakespeare’s life, the time he lived in, and his tragedies. In this one-semester course, Romeo and Juliet and Othello, two plays relatively accessible to a young audience, are studied and discussed in class, so as to help the students develop a vision to see into the core of the Bard’s dramatic world. In order to give the students more fun in the process of learning, visual aids, including drawings, videos, and DVDs, will be heavily used for teaching. Rehearsals and short presentations of Shakespeare’s plays will also be carried out in class.

To guide the students to 1) become familiar with the knowledge and skills of reading Shakespeare's tragedy. 2) explore the possibilities of staging Shakespeare's tragedy plays. 3) contextualize the relationships between text, theatre, and performance.

Shakespeare: Macbeth

Shakespeare: King Lear

Online Folger Edition