ENGL 320T(S) Marlowe and Shakespeare (W)
In 1586, at the age of twenty-three, Christopher Marlowe wrote Tamburlaine the Great. Over the next six years-probably while moonlighting as a government spy-he went on to produce some of the strangest and also most influential works of English drama. Then in 1593, Marlowe was murdered, stabbed through the eye in a tavern brawl. It is often said that Marlowe's early death, no less than his early success, made the work of Shakespeare possible. In this tutorial we will read Marlowe's Edward II, the first popular history play in English, and Shakespeare's Richard II; The Jew of Malta and The Merchant of Venice; Doctor Faustus and Macbeth. We will look at ways in which Marlovian preoccupations-with lurid violence, with debasement, with self-invention-resurface in Shakespeare, in new forms. In the process we will also take up more general questions of literary influence: What do writers borrow from each other? And how does the knowledge of indebtedness-shared to varying degrees with an audience-affect the meaning and impact of their work? Critical readings will include essays by Harry Levin, Harold Bloom and Stephen Greenblatt.
Format: tutorial. Requirements: Students will meet with the instructor in pairs for an hour each week; they will write a 5- to 7-page paper every other week (five in all), and comment on their partners' papers in alternate weeks. Emphasis will be placed on developing skills not only in reading and interpretation, but also in constructing critical arguments and responding to them.
Prerequisite: a 100-level English course, except 150. Enrollment limit: 10 (expected: 10). Preference given to English majors.
(Pre-1700 or Criticism)
Tutorial meetings to be arranged. KLEINER