Shakespeare’s History Plays: Then and Now

Overview

This module looks at the Henriad, Shakespeare’s most successful series of history plays. The plays resonate with their original moment of production, but they also continue to be produced on stage and screen today and are often used to mark moments of national celebration or crisis. The module examines Richard II, Henry IV Part One, Henry IV Part Two and Henry V and asks two related questions – firstly, why did the history plays speak so pertinently to the late sixteenth / early seventeenth centuries? And, secondly, why to do they continue to speak so loudly in the present?

Students will work comparatively across the 400 years dividing Shakespeare’s Henriad from its contemporary adaptations. The module analyses Shakespeare’s use of historical precedent and literary form and reflects on his deployment of seriality. It involves a critical engagement with representations of war and conflict, race and nationality, masculinity and violence, leadership and authority, family and aging, sexuality and spectacle.

Learning Objectives

Students will develop their understanding of historical and serialised drama and literary form, including what it means to stage history in the early sixteenth / early seventeenth centuries and what it means today.

Students will gain advanced knowledge of the Henriad and be able to engage with the changing representation of issues including war, conflict, race, nationality, masculinity, violence, leadership, authority, family, aging, sexuality and spectacle.

Students will and understand the applicability of Shakespeare’s work today and be able to reflect critically on the ways in which literature relates to contemporary social issues and debates and the way it is utilised at moments of national celebration and crisis.

Students will develop their literary and textual skills through close analysis and will learn how to read film and adaptation.

Through the designate writing workshops, students will develop their written communication skills and their ability to make an argument.

Skills

Students will advance their skills in close reading of sixteenth and seventeenth century poetic and dramatic literature.

Students will advance their skills in reading film and adaptation and be able to utilise the technical language of both.

Students will develop skills in writing essays and making arguments

Students will develop reflexive thinking and independent critical and analytical skills.

Students will acquire skills in writing clearly about literary form and its historical functions.

Students will be able to articulate the relevance of the history plays in the contemporary.

Assessment

None