Some Rise by Sin, and Some by Virtue Fall: Shakespeare, Measure for Measure

A journey to Poland, an utterly horrible man governing Vienna, a nun refusing to become someone’s mistress, a duke disguised as a monk … and of course love, a bed trick, cunning plans, confusion and mistaken identities (in one case involving the chopped-off head of a dead pirate): Measure for Measure has it all. This course will give you an opportunity to immerse yourselves in a close reading of this play, combined with a great deal of hands-on acting. 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 play.

Please buy this edition and none other: William Shakespeare (ed.: A. R. Braunmuller, Robert N. Watson et al.), Measure for Measure. The Arden Shakespeare, Third Series (Bloomsbury), ISBN 978-1904271437. You will need the text from the first week of the seminar, so buy your book as soon as possible and start reading. Do not waste your money on other editions without substantial annotations as these would be useless for the purposes of this course. Useful background knowledge on key cultural and literary contexts of Shakespeare’s time can be found here: Christoph Heyl, Kleine Englische Literaturgeschichte. J.B. Metzler. ISBN-13: 978-3476045096.

Requirements: Good preparation for each session, active participation, including quite a bit of sighing and shouting plus doing any amount of wild, exciting and outrageous things. You will get a chance to turn into the duke of Vienna, his evil and corrupt deputy, or perhaps a brothel madam or a nun. Also written work according to your particular Studienordnung. There will be a Moodle room; you will receive your Moodle password via e-mail.

Just in case your application is rejected by the LSF system: If you want to do this course because you are genuinely interested, you will be most welcome, no matter what LSF says. Please get in touch with claudia.hausmann@uni-due.de who will enrol you manually. The worst that might happen to you is that you cannot do a Leistungsnachweis if you lack the formal requirements.