ENGL 313(S) Interpretation and Doubt: Shakespeare's Poems and Plays
This course begins with Shakespeare's Sonnets, some of the most mysterious,
haunting, and widely debated poems in the English language. Much of what
happens in the sonnets is so intimate, so fraught with desire and potential scandal, that Shakespeare only hints at what cannot be said. Brilliantly crafted sonnets exist in tension with the unstable, distraught speaker in the poems, who, like
characters in the plays, is embroiled in events and relationships he only partially
comprehends. The interpretive crisis precipitated by the sonnets is reenacted
over and over again in "A Lover's Complaint," Much Ado about Nothing, All's
Well that Ends Well, Hamlet, Othello, Antony and Cleopatra, and A Winter's
Tale. We will explore questions of interpretation and cause for doubt in all these
texts. How do interior thought and external circumstance, self-representation
and rhetorical persuasion, truth and deception interact? To what extent do the
love affairs in the comedies, tragedies, and romances, like the lovers' triangle
between the sonnet speaker, the young man, and the dark lady, inscribe or expose sexual stereotypes? How can judgment and interpretation proceed when
doubt continually complicates and unravels "simple truth"?
Format: discussion/seminar. Requirements: weekly journal entries, two short
papers, and a final 8- to 10-page paper.
Prerequisites: a 100-level English course, except 150. Enrollment limit: 25 (expected: 20). Preference given to English majors.
(Pre-1700)