Shipwreck, a magician, various spirits, love, a power struggle and slapstick humour … and, of course, a lot of sighing and shouting: The Tempest has it all. This course will give you an opportunity to engage in a close reading of this play. We shall consider historical and cultural contexts as well as questions relating to the staging of the play, both in Shakespeare’s time and today. We shall also look at cinematic and other adaptations and works of art inspired by this comedy.

            Please buy this edition and none other: William Shakespeare (eds.: Alden T. Vaughan, Virginia Mason Vaughan ), The Tempest. The Arden Shakespeare, Third Series. (Bloomsbury, ISBN 978-1-4081-3347-7). Do not waste your money on texts without substantial annotations as these would be useless for the purposes of this course. Due to the Corona situation, the entire seminar will be conducted online. Additional material will be made available.

Requirements: Thorough preparation for each session, active participation, including some sighing and shouting (and perhaps briefly pretending to be a magician or a spirit), anything that might be required according to your Modulhandbuch/Studienordnung. As always: think, enjoy (!), annotate, and look things up if necessary.