This is a course for anyone who is interested in reading or watching Shakespeare's plays with greater understanding and enjoyment. Lectures and readings will provide students with the basic historical context needed to approach Shakespeare's works, as well as answering some of the most commonly asked questions about this most famous of all English writers. Emphasis will be placed throughout on looking attentively at the words Shakespeare wrote, and students will participate each week in closely reading significant samples of his poetic and dramatic writing. The course will culminate with a more detailed look at two great plays, The Merchant of Venice and Macbeth.
Course Dates
Course details
Tutors
Key Features
Aims of the course:
- To introduce students to critical study of Shakespeare.
- To provide students with the basic historical context needed to understand and appreciate Shakespeare's poetic and dramatic works.
- To enable students to answer some commonly asked questions about Shakespeare and to grasp some of the reasons for his high literary reputation.
Course content overview
Shakespeare is widely regarded as one of the greatest writers of all time. He created some of the most recognisable characters in all of literature - Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth to name a few - and his works continue to be regularly performed and studied to this day. He also was a great poet outside the context of the theatre, whose sonnets in particular remain some of the best-loved poems in English.
Nonetheless, many people find Shakespeare's works difficult to approach, partly because of the antiquity of his language, and partly from lack of familiarity with the theatrical and social conventions of his time. What's more, it's fair to ask whether any writer can really have been so extraordinarily good as to deserve the superlative praise heaped on Shakespeare's works over the centuries.
This course aims to supply some of the necessary historical context for understanding and appreciating Shakespeare's works, and to try to bring to light some of the things that gave him such a claim to greatness. It will not attempt to answer the question whether he really was 'the best ever', but will try to convey some of the reasons why his works do deserve a reputation for brilliant storytelling, astonishingly rich use of language, and profound observation of life.
Each week will focus on a particular aspect of Shakespeare's achievement. In Week One we will consider him as a poet, in Week Two as a dramatist, and in Weeks Three, Four and Five we will look in more detail at the various types of drama in which he excelled: Histories, Comedies, and Tragedies.
Welcome week (Week 0)
Purpose:
- personal introductions
- introducing the course
- useful reading
- personal objectives
Learning outcomes
By studying this week the students should have:
- become familiar with navigating around the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) and from VLE to links and back
- tested their ability to access files and the web conferencing software and sorted out any problems with the help of the eLearning team
- learnt how to look for and reference internet resources
- used Quickmail to introduce themselves to other students
- contributed to a discussion forum to introduce themselves to other students and discuss why they are interested in the course, what they hope to get out their studies and also to respond to a question set by tutor aimed at initiating critical discussion of Shakespeare.
Week 1: Shakespeare’s Poetry
Purpose:
Students will be introduced to Shakespeare’s poetry by way of a close look at his sonnets, with a glance along the way at some of his other non-dramatic writing, notably his narrative poem Venus and Adonis. Historical context will be provided, describing Shakespeare’s popularity as a poet during his own lifetime, and explaining how poetry circulated in Elizabethan society both in print and in manuscript. We will see that Shakespeare wrote poetry in forms popular among his contemporaries, though always with a distinctive turn. Explanation will be given of the main verse forms he used, notably the ‘English sonnet’ and its building block, the ‘iambic pentameter’ line, which is also the basic unit of his dramatic verse. By looking closely at selected sonnets, we will explore what makes Shakespeare’s poetry so interesting and rewarding to read. Among other matters, we will consider the temptation to read his sonnets as autobiographical, examining the interplay in them between a sense of things revealed and of things concealed. Supplementary materials will be provided this week noting some of the distinctive features of the English language of Shakespeare’s day.
Learning outcomes:
By studying this week the students should have:
- grasped some of the distinctive features of the English language in Shakespeare’s time
- understood Shakespeare’s reputation as a major Elizabethan poet
- seen in detail the forms in which Shakespeare’s poetry was written
- closely read and discussed selected examples of Shakespeare’s poetry
Week 2: Shakespeare’s Theatre
Purpose:
Students will be introduced to Shakespeare’s dramatic works by way of three plays which famously explore the ideas of the theatre and of acting: Henry the Fifth, Hamlet, and As You Like It. We will look together at specific passages from each play, as well as considering the important role of theatricality and acting in the stories that they tell. We will see how the idea that people are often required to play parts in life, while keeping their true thoughts or feelings hidden, is a key element of what gives Shakespeare’s more memorable characters such an extraordinary impression of ‘depth’. Connections will be made back to what we learned in Week One about Shakespeare’s sonnets.
Historical context will be provided, describing the nature of the theatre in Shakespeare’s time, and his involvement in it as playwright, actor, and shareholder in one of the major theatrical companies. We will consider the conditions of performance, and the extraordinary diversity of his audiences from apprentices to monarchs and ask how these things are reflected in Shakespeare’s plays.
Supplementary materials will be provided addressing the currently fashionable idea that someone other than Shakespeare wrote the plays attributed to him, showing why this idea is historically implausible.
Learning outcomes:
By studying this week, the students should have:
- learned about the nature of the Elizabethan theatre and Shakespeare’s involvement in it
- seen how a sense of the theatricality of life features as a recurrent theme in his plays
- discussed specific passages in which Shakespeare’s characters are required to play-act, and seen how these foster a sense of depth of characterisation
- understood the basis on which scholars reject the popular notion that someone else wrote Shakespeare’s plays
Week 3: Shakespearean History
Purpose:
- Shakespeare’s career as a playwright took off with an extraordinary series of plays retelling key events in English political history. Background will be provided describing what those events were, and why they mattered to Shakespeare’s contemporaries. Then we will examine the way in which Shakespeare retold those old stories: what he kept, what he altered, and above all how he explored their significance in a complex way that can still resonate today despite the remoteness from us of the events he recounts.
- We will look together at the greatest group of these English history plays, comprising Richard II, Henry the Fourth (Parts One and Two), and Henry V. We will see how Shakespeare masterfully reshapes his story ― freely mixing fact and invention, the serious and the comic, high society and low ― to give us a remarkable breadth of perspective on political upheavals and their relation to personal life, as well as some of the most captivating characters ever to grace the stage.
- Supplementary materials will discuss the extraordinary way in which Shakespeare mixes verse and prose to produce dramatic contrasts and to help create a strong sense both of characters and of contexts.
Learning outcomes:
By studying this week the students should have:
- understood the importance of English medieval history to Shakespeare’s contemporaries
- considered in detail the way in which Shakespeare represents this history on stage
- explored Shakespeare’s use on verse and prose for dramatic purposes
Week 4: Shakespearean Comedy
Purpose:
Students will be introduced to Shakespeare’s peerless achievement as a writer of comic drama by way of a close look at The Merchant of Venice, with mention along the way of some of his other great comedies including A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Background will be provided describing the conventional themes and plot structure of romantic comedy, in order to show how Shakespeare draws heavily on those conventions while also pushing their limits, not least by greatly complicating the question of who the ‘good guys’ and the ‘bad guys’ really are. We will focus in particular on the fascinating moral ambiguities of The Merchant’s supposed villain Shylock and of its heroine Portia ― two of the most memorable characters in all of Shakespearean comedy ― and we will ask, what are the rights and wrongs of the play’s famously ambivalent denouement, in which Shylock tries but fails to get his “pound of flesh”? We will see that Shakespearean comedy, as well as having great entertainment value, also impels us to think about issues of real importance in life.
Supplementary materials will address the question of Shakespeare’s originality as a storyteller: to what extent did he invent his own stories, and to what extent borrow them ready-made from other writers.
Learning outcomes:
By studying this week, the students should have:
- seen how Shakespeare adapts and questions the conventions of comic drama
- understood and assessed the complex moral perspective fostered by The Merchant of Venice
- discussed the play’s principal characters and key events in light of these themes
Week 5: Shakespearean Tragedy
Purpose:
Among Shakespeare’s most famous characters of all are the heroes of his great tragedies: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth. We will focus on the notoriously wicked protagonists of Macbeth ― that is to say, Macbeth himself and his wife Lady Macbeth ― asking what it is that makes Shakespeare’s portrayal of them so compelling, and what sets them so far apart from more conventional villains.
Background will be provided on the critical history of Shakespeare’s tragedies, with particular emphasis on the well-known idea of a ‘tragic flaw’ which leads the heroes of these plays to their untimely demise. We will see where this idea comes from, and consider what its strengths and limitations are as a means of getting to grips with the dramatic power of these plays.
Supplementary materials will discuss Shakespeare in performance. What are some of the key things that happen in bringing a play-text to life on stage or screen? How can watching performances enhance our understanding of a play, and how can reading it help us to get more from seeing performances.
An attempt will be made to draw together the various threads of our discussion over the weeks, in order to summarise some of the qualities that combine to make Shakespeare’s works a source of continuing fascination and pleasure.
Learning outcomes:
By studying this week the students should have:
- considered in detail two of Shakespeare’s great tragic characters
- explored the relationship in Shakespearean tragedy between character and action in the light of critical history
- gained insight into the relationship between Shakespearean text and performance, and perceived how reading the plays and seeing productions can enrich one another
Week 6: what next?
- assessment of student learning
- assessment of student satisfaction
- encouragement of further study
This course is open to everyone, and you don’t need any previous knowledge or experience of the subject to attend.
Our short courses are designed especially for adult learners who want to advance their personal or professional development. They are taught by tutors who are expert in both their subjects and in teaching students of all ages and experiences.
Please note that all teaching is in English. You should have near-native command of the English language to get the maximum benefit from the course.
Each week of an online course is roughly equivalent to 2-3 hours of classroom time. On top of this, participants should expect to spend roughly 2-3 hours of self-study time, for example, reading materials, although this will vary from person to person.
While they have a specific start and end date and will follow a weekly schedule (for example, week 1 will cover topic A, week 2 will cover topic B), our tutor-led online courses are designed to be flexible and as such would normally not require participants to be online for a specific day of the week or time of the day (although some tutors may try to schedule times where participants can be online together for web seminars, which will be recorded so that those who are unable to be online at certain times are able to access material).
Unless otherwise stated, all course material will be posted on the VLE so that they can be accessed at any time throughout the duration of the course and interaction with your tutor and fellow participants will take place through a variety of different ways which will allow for both synchronous and asynchronous learning (using discussion boards etc).
Fees
The course fee includes access to the course on our VLE, personal feedback on your work from an expert tutor, a certificate of participation (if you complete work and take part in discussions), and access to the class resources for two years after your course finishes.
Concessions
For more information, please see our concessions information page.
Alison Fordham Bursary
University of Cambridge Professional and Continuing Education is proud to offer the Alison Fordham bursary, which is awarded to students who wish to study on one of our short online courses via our VLE, reducing the fee paid by 50%. The bursary is limited to a single award for each set of online courses.
Application criteria:
- applicants should set out their personal learning motivations since priority will be given to those who are returning to learning after an extended break, or have not previously engaged with fully online learning, or are seeking to use the online short course as a bridge towards undergraduate award-bearing study
- applicants who can demonstrate financial need
For more information, please see our bursaries information page.
A certificate of participation and a digital credential will be awarded to those who contribute constructively to weekly discussions, exercises and assignments for the duration of the course.
