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En 111
Violence and Reconciliation on the Shakespearean Stage
9 units (3-0-6)  | second term
Sir Francis Bacon famously described revenge as a "wild justice," and there are vivid examples of such justice in the drama of Shakespeare and his contemporaries: revenge for political betrayal and tyranny, for sexual infidelities and desires, for religious misbehavior and dogmatism. But what of the experience of reconciliation on the Shakespearean stage? What pathways to concord and peace did these plays offer? This course explores the relationship of violence to the fleeting experience of reconciliation in early modern drama. The plays of Shakespeare, Marlowe, Jonson, Middleton, and Dryden allow us to consider how drama as text and performance engaged and continues to engage playgoers as they watch the religious, social, and political upheaval of their worlds mounted to the stage.
Instructor: Koch