British Drama, 1600-1750

Fakultet for humaniora, samfunnsvitenskap og lærerutdanning

This course may be taken as an intermediate course.

This course is an historical survey of how the leading intellectual, social and cultural issues of the day were engaged in British drama between 1600 and 1750. Students will become familiar with some of the greatest texts in the English language, including at least two of Shakespeare's plays, and will be introduced to some of the key events, ideas and struggles of this seminal period in British cultural history. Through a combination of close textual reading and historical and contextual analysis, students will assess the role played by the theatre in the nation's culture and society. They will also learn about the development of British drama as a genre in this period by paying close attention to the shifting conventions of stagecraft and by encountering plays written in different forms, such as tragedy and comedy.

Knowledge and comprehension

• of the development of drama as a genre in Britain between 1600 and 1750
• of the role of the theatre in British culture and society in this period
• of the social, cultural and intellectual history of the period
• of 4-6 plays in detail
• of the importance of the drama of this period for subsequent British, and international, culture

Proficiency:

• ability to apply theoretical and analytical concepts to the study of plays
• acquisition of advanced skills for the close reading of dramatic texts

English

2 hours of teaching for 13 weeks. Quality assurance: The subject undergoes an end evaluation every third year.

Coursework requirements: Two papers, one of 1-2 pages and one of 4 pages. Obligatory coursework will be graded as approved/not approved.

Assessment method:

6-hour school exam at the end of the course.

Performance in the course will be assessed with the grades A-F. Grades are A-E for passed and F for failed. A re-examination is offered in the event of an F-grade. The deadline to register for re-examination is January 15th for the autumn semester and February 15th for the spring semester.

Skriftlig eksamen: 03.12.2010

The date for the exam can be changed. The final date will be announced at your faculty early in May and early in November.

Skriftlig eksamen

The plays

Jacobean drama

*William Shakespeare MacBeth (c.1603-7)

*William Shakespeare The Tempest (c.1610-11)

Restoration comedy

William Davenant and John Dryden The Tempest; or, The Enchanted Island (1667)

*William Wycherley The Country Wife (1675)

William Congreve The Way of the World (1700)

Restoration tragedy

William Davenant Macbeth (1664)

*Thomas Otway Venice Preserv´d; or A Plot Discover´d (1682).

The four plays marked with an asterix (*) are those we shall be studying in particularly close detail. Students are therefore strongly recommended to purchase the following three books:

Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen, eds (2009) William Shakespeare: MacBeth. RSC/Palgrave Macmillan edition. ISBN 9780230576209

Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen, eds (2008) William Shakespeare: The Tempest. RSC/Palgrave Macmillan edition. ISBN 9780230217850

S. McMillin ed. (1997) Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Comedy. Norton Critical Editions, second edition. ISBN 9780393963342

The third of these books contains the texts we shall be using for Wycherley´s The Country Wife and Congreve´s The Way of the World, as well as other useful secondary material.

The other plays are all available either in hard copies in the library, or as e-texts through BIBSYS (Davenant´s MacBeth), Google books (Davenant´s and Dryden´s The Tempest) and Project Gutenberg (Otway´s Venice Preserv´d).

Preliminary secondary reading

Introductions to the period

Barry Coward (2003) The Stuart Age: England 1603-1714, third edition. Longman. ISBN 9780582772519

Gerald MacLean, ed. (1995) Culture and Society in the Stuart Restoration: Literature, Drama, History. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521475662

David Smith (1998) A History of the Modern British Isles 1603-1707: The Double Crown. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 9780631194026

George Southcombe and Grant Tapsell (2009) Restoration Politics, Religion and Culture: Britain and Ireland, 1660-1714. Palgrave Macmillan. 9780230574458

Introductions to Shakespeare

David Bevington (2006) How to Read a Shakespeare Play. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 9781405113960

James Shapiro (2006) 1599: A Year in the Life of Shakespeare. Faber and Faber. ISBN 9780571214815

Introductions to Restoration Drama

Deborah Payne Fisk, ed. (2000) The Cambridge Companion to English Restoration Theatre. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521588126

Susan J. Owen, ed. (2008) A Companion to Restoration Drama. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 9781405176101