Claire Sommers

Cleopatra, queen of the Nile, has become famous for her romantic liaisons, political maneuvering, and her death by snake bite. Yet Cleopatra was also a formidable military strategist, a powerful leader who studied medicine and spoke nearly a dozen languages. Most importantly, Cleopatra was the prototype for depicting strong women on the throne. This course will explore how Early Modern writers re-imagined Cleopatra in the Renaissance, a time which saw another strong queen, Elizabeth I, rise to power. We will pay special attention to how writers used Cleopatra to engage with Early Modern issues of globalization, gender, history, and politics. Finally, we will think about how Shakespeare and his contemporaries contrasted the exotic and sometimes scandalous Cleopatra with the virginal Queen Elizabeth. 3 short response papers; midterm and final papers; and a presentation introducing one of the assigned readings. First-year and/or students with no prior knowledge of this topic are encouraged to enroll.

While Shakespeare is celebrated for his realistic depictions of characters, events, and emotions, his work is filled with other-worldly elements, including sorcery, oracles, myths, and grotesque creatures. This course will explore Shakespeare's use of the fantastic, the unnatural, and the monstrous. Reading a wide selection of comedy, tragedy, and history, we will consider Shakespeare's often contradictory attitude to the supernatural: on one hand, a source of evil, villainy, and perversion, and, on the other, a symbol of the divine and a means of surpassing the humanly possible. We will look at how Shakespeare used monstrous imagery to reflect upon his own work and the nature of theatre itself. Finally, we will examine how Shakespeare's allusions to the unnatural allowed him to critique and engage with historical sources as well as contemporary issues such as gender, politics, and globalization. Readings may include "Antony and Cleopatra," "Othello," "A Midsummer Night's Dream," "The Tempest," "Coriolanus," "Troilus and Cressida," "The Winter's Tale," and "Richard III." Three short response papers; midterm and final papers; and a presentation introducing one of the assigned readings. First-year and/or students with no prior knowledge of this topic are encouraged to enroll.

Novels are everywhere, from "To Kill a Mockingbird" to "Harry Potter" to "Pride and Prejudice." But the novel needed to be invented, and, if the earliest examples date from antiquity, the genre flourished during the Renaissance, where it offers a blend of interests such as fantasy, humor, mystery, horror, and romance. We will explore how the Early Modern novel, with its stories of love, sorcery, disguises, monsters, abduction, and adventure, was shaped by the printing press, new technology that made literature accessible to the masses and thus encouraged the creation of popular commercial fiction. We will also see how these works grapple with issues of globalization, gender, and education. We will look at how the Early Modern novel descends from ancient prose and other genres such as poetry, drama, and epic. Finally, we will consider how the popular reception of the Early Modern novel solidified print culture and has continued to influence a diverse array of popular literature, film, and television, including fairy tales, science fiction, and romantic comedy. Readings may include works by Plato, Longus, Heliodorus, and Apuleius from antiquity; works by Lyly, Nashe, Lodge, Greene, Sidney, More, Deloney, and Shakespeare from the Renaissance; and modern theories of the novel by Bakhtin, Lukacs, and Moretti. 3 short response papers; midterm and final papers; and a presentation introducing one of the assigned readings. First-year and/or students with no prior knowledge of this topic are encouraged to enroll.

Today, the word "monster" refers to a creature that is frightening and harmful but ultimately imaginary. However, in the early modern period, monsters appeared in a wide array of fictional and nonfictional genres and could alternately symbolize good and evil; divinity and animal; punishment and miracle; corruption and innovation; and perversion and transcendence. This course will investigate the often contradictory portrayals of monsters and marvels in early modern literature. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, we will read prose fiction, drama, and poetry alongside contemporaneous medical treatises, philosophical discourses, religious texts, and news pamphlets in order to better understand early modern attitudes toward monsters. We will ground our analysis in the earliest portrayals of monsters in Greco-Roman literature, considering how these creatures were adapted to reflect early modern sensibilities. We will also examine the use of monsters to represent the relationship between art and nature in order to reflect upon the creative process itself. Finally, we will probe the deployment of monsters as a means of engaging with early modern issues of gender, politics, disability, and globalization. Readings may include works by Plato, Aristotle, Ovid, Cicero, Pliny, Paré, Bacon, Marlowe, Nashe, Sidney, Jonson, Greene, Heywood, Spenser, and Shakespeare. 3 short responses; midterm and final papers; and presentation of one of the assigned readings. First-year and/or students with no prior knowledge of this topic are encouraged to enroll.

This course is an introduction to Shakespeare's plays and poems through the interpretive framework of performance. A thespian himself, Shakespeare drew on his stage experience when writing his plays, collaborating with a theater company and shaping his characters to reflect the talents of its actors. Reading the plays as literature, we will study the evolution of how they have been produced on stage from their early modern premieres to the present day, comparing and contrasting different strategies for generating meaning in performance with reference to various film adaptations. By reciting a sonnet of their choosing and rehearsing a scene from one of the plays, students will gain new insight into performance as an interpretive act and a deeper understanding of the production and reception histories of Shakespeare's plays. Most importantly, we will consider why Shakespeare's works have continued not only to resonate, but also to entertain, for over 400 years. Assignments include: two papers; an in-class performance of a sonnet; and a group presentation of a scene from one of Shakespeare's playsaccompanied by a brief reflection statement. First-year and/or students with no prior knowledge of this topic are encouraged to enroll. Satisfies the Early Modern requirement.