Twins separated in a shipwreck on the wild
coast of somewhere, a young woman disguised as a young man, a lady falling in
love with this young woman, more people falling in love all over the place,
more confusion, a sub-plot featuring hilarious characters with names such as
“Sir Toby Belch”, a duel (almost), lots of humour, prison, madness and multiple
marriages in the end: Twelfth Night 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 thi comedy.
Please buy this edition and none other: William
Shakespeare (ed.: Keir Elam), Twelfth
Night. The Arden Shakespeare, Third Series (Bloomsbury), ISBN 9781903436998.
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. Very 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 a confused duke, an aggressive
nobleman, a young woman disguised as a young man, a thoroughly evil guy or a
clown. Also anything that might be required according to your Modulhandbuch
/ Studienordnung.
We currently assume that teaching will be
entirely on campus and in person. This, however depends on the further
development of the Pandemic. Watch this
space, and read all e-mails sent to your official university e-mail address.
Please
join the seminar´s Moodle room (William
Shakespeare). You will receive further information, including the Moodle
password, via e-mail. Please make sure to use and check your official university
e-mail addresses at all times. Do not use any other addresses, and do not have
e-mails sent to your university address forwarded to other addresses.
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.
