Course description
How did the son of a glove-maker from a small town in rural England come to be one of the world's best-known writers, read and performed internationally four hundred years after his death? The answer to this question is complex. Some of the causes for William Shakespeare's rise to global prominence are historical, like the unique conditions of commercial theater in Shakespeare's day, the eighteenth-century cult of bardolatry and Shakespeare worship, or the intertwinement of Shakespeare with British colonialism. Other causes could be called aesthetic and intrinsic, stemming from the poetic and dramatic qualities which give Shakespeare's plays their lasting power to move and astonish. Still other grounds for Shakespeare's global success lie in the myriad ways actors, writers, and directors from around the world have adapted Shakespeare's plays, combining them with local theatrical and literary traditions. This course explores these and other reasons for Shakespeare's status as a global playwright in the twenty-first century, while also providing an introduction to some of Shakespeare's greatest plays and to a small selection of modern adaptations from around the world. Plays read in the class may include Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, Antony and Cleopatra, King Lear, Macbeth, and The Tempest. Modern adaptations read may include West Side Story, Aimé Césaire's Une Tempête, Akira Kurosawa's Ran, Toni Morrison's Desdemona, and Vishal Bhardwal's Maqbool.
