Postgraduate Course: Political Shakespeare (Level 11) (ENLI11188)

Course Outline
School	School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures	College	College of Humanities and Social Science
Credit level (Normal year taken)	SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate)	Availability	Not available to visiting students
SCQF Credits	20	ECTS Credits	10
Summary	This course examines the political questions that matter most within a range of primarily historical and tragic dramas written across Shakespeareżs career. Its first part will focus on a sequence of early plays and it will consider how these works address the political divisions and dilemmas that dominated late Elizabethan culture. Its second part will examine the shared concerns of three plays, all written in close proximity at the end of the sixteenth century, with questions of succession, resistance, and the rise of a new form of political sovereignty. To conclude, the course will consider the impact of the Jacobean succession on Shakespeareżs political thought and dramatic composition. It will consider how James's mode of kingship affected Shakespeare's understanding of political life. *This course is taught jointly with undergraduate students and consequently postgraduate places are limited
Course description	Not entered

Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites		Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations		Other requirements	None

Course Delivery Information

Academic year 2015/16, Not available to visiting students (SS1)		Quota: 3
Course Start	Semester 1
Timetable	Timetable
Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info)	Total Hours: 200 ( Seminar/Tutorial Hours 20, Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4, Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours 176 )
Assessment (Further Info)	Written Exam 0 %, Coursework 100 %, Practical Exam 0 %
Additional Information (Assessment)	One essay of 4000 words (100%)
Feedback	Not entered
No Exam Information

Learning Outcomes
By the end of the course, students will have an overview of how Shakespeareżs political thought developed across his career as a dramatist and some of the core preoccupations of the plays. They will have learned how these plays absorb and intervene in the key political debates of their period of composition. Students will also have considered how different genres and different theatrical contexts affect the way in which the plays explore political ideas and arguments.